


Oh My My My

by notaruka



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Age Difference, Childhood Friends, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2019-06-29 22:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15738972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notaruka/pseuds/notaruka
Summary: One morning, Ben’s uncle returned from the war-torned dunes of Jakku with a scraggly, little six-year-old named Rey. She was feisty, mischievous, got herself into fights all the time, and was oftentimes a royal pain in his ass. But she changed his life, and he loved her.One morning, Rey met a tall, moody, teenage boy named Ben. He was grumpy, swore a lot, shoplifted to cope with his teenage angst, and everything she wanted to grow up to be. But when he packed his bags and renounced his family, she forced herself to hate him.Six years later, when they are inadvertently reunited by some miracle of fate, Rey is reminded just how difficult that can be.





	1. Just two kids, you and I

_Six, Sixteen_

It was early - much too early to be grocery shopping. But Luke had always been an early riser, and he liked to encourage that habit in his household.

On most days, Ben was able to tactically utilise his teenage angst against him, locking himself in his room and blasting offensive music from his speakers. But today, Luke had vehemently insisted on his presence, on account of it being Rey’s first Saturday in the family.

He grumpily pushed the clunky shopping cart alongside his browsing, slow-moving uncle, the hood of his black sweatshirt pulled sloppily over his head. As Luke droned vapidly on about the different groceries that caught his eye, Ben fantasised about being back at home, playing video games or watching porn.

“They’re out of whole-grain bread today,” Luke mused aloud, as if it were a fascinating revelation.

The young orphan girl trudged apprehensively beside Luke, her little hand enclosed within his. Though she nodded along as he pointed out the different items to her, even she appeared to be bored.

It was around the fifth, “That’s strange. This was on sale only yesterday,” when the call of Luke’s name interrupted them, just as Ben was about to lose it at his uncle in a fit of teenage rage.

“Luke!” A man of Luke’s age came barrelling right up to them, a wide, friendly grin plastered across his face. “How are ya, buddy?”

“Biggs!” Luke greeted in a hearty chuckle. “Haven’t seen you in a while! I’m doing great! How’s the missus?”

“Oh, she’s doing great, too, yeah. Been asking about ya. We were just wondering the other night, you know, what’s Luke been up to?”

“Well,” Luke laughed, gesturing to the two children behind him. “This! This is what I’ve been up to.”

“Ah, of course. How are you, Ben?” Biggs inquired warmly, tipping his cap at the teenager.

“Well, sir,” Ben replied politely but stoically.

“And who might this be?” Biggs questioned, bending down to meet the young girl at eye-level.

She fearfully hid behind Luke’s right leg, clutching him around the knee.

“This is Rey,” Luke introduced fondly, cupping the back of her small head with one hand. “I just adopted her last week. She’s shy.”

“Welcome to the family, Rey! Don’t worry, Luke’ll take good care of you,” Biggs assured her with an earnest wink. “Oh, God, you know what? I just remembered. I saw Dack outside before. I think he’s still there. You wanna go say hi?”

“Oh, man, Dack! I haven’t seen him in ages!” Luke twisted around to address his nephew. “Ben, look after Rey, will you? I’ll be right back.”

The two children watched their caretaker tread off excitedly with his friend, before turning to look at each other awkwardly.

Ben squirmed under the little girl’s expectant gaze. “Let’s go look at the sodas,” he murmured, swivelling the shopping cart around and heading for the drinks aisle.

He swore that she had followed him, and he remembered hearing her tiny footsteps halting behind him at the soda section, but after spending what was probably too long debating with himself over Coke or Mountain Dew, Ben suddenly realised that Rey was no longer beside him. “Shit!”

Stricken with panic, he speed-walked across the aisles, peering through them one-by-one as he passed. He cussed loudly as he grappled with the shopping cart, which wheeled in all erratic directions against his thrust.

His anxious strides slowed to a cautious sidle when he heard a commotion originating from the candy aisle. He rounded the corner to the source of the noise, and was surprised to find young Rey arguing fretfully with a store employee.

“What’s going on?” he demanded, breaking up the squabbling pair.

Rey whipped her head up and gasped, eyes wide and fearful.

The store employee - a stocky, middle-aged man with a wiry moustache - gave a frustrated sigh and turned to take up his business with the older boy. “Good. Yeah. This your sister?”

Ben glanced down at her. “Uhhh...”

“I caught her trying to steal some candy,” the other man revealed, holding out two full bags of branded candy.

Rey suppressed a whimper as she watched Ben absorb this information, expecting him to explode at her, like all grownups who’d ever caught her stealing.

But instead, he merely regarded her with an indiscernible expression - somewhere on the spectrum between intrigue and excitement.

“I...am...very sorry about that, sir,” Ben spoke slowly, deliberately. He took the bags of candy from the store employee’s hands, and began to steer little Rey away with a stern hand on her back. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Looks like I’m going to have to give this one a talking to. Excuse us.”

Rey scowled down at her feet as Ben led her away. She didn’t know what this boy had in store for her in terms of punishment, but she assumed that it would not have been very agreeable.

“There you are,” Luke breathed in relief when he spotted them. He rushed up to Rey, fluidly scooping her up into his arms.

She twisted around to warily study Ben, who, to her surprise, said nothing about her previous misdemeanour. Instead, he merely nodded at his uncle in acknowledgement and continued to sluggishly push the shopping cart onwards.

After they’d finished loading the groceries into Luke’s van outside, Luke instructed them to wait in the car while he returned the shopping cart to its proper station.

Rey climbed into the back seat, still confused about Ben’s silence. While he settled himself into the front passenger seat, she stared at the back of his head in open-mouthed wonder.

“By the way,” he said, the sudden break in silence making her jump, “I’m really disappointed.”

She slumped down low into her seat, folding her arms across her chest with a disheartened huff.

“If you’re gonna try to steal something,” he added, rummaging for something in the front pocket of his hoodie, “don’t get caught.”

Her eyes widened when he magically pulled out the very two candy packets that she’d failed to steal earlier. She beamed at him and instinctively reached out, presuming that he’d snatched them up for her.

But he only crammed them back inside his pocket, flashing her a devilish smirk.

Luke returned in that moment, sliding into the driver’s seat. “Alright. All good to go?”

“Yup,” Ben replied nonchalantly, as if nothing were out of the ordinary.

Rey smiled. Maybe things weren’t going to be so dreary after all.

* * *

_Six, Sixteen_

Rey was on her first-ever road trip, and it was so much more fun than she’d ever imagined.

She rode giddily on Han Solo’s back, pointing up at the eagles she spotted soaring in the sky. Han’s wife, Mayor Leia Organa, strolled happily alongside them, pulling astonished faces and gasping in response to Rey’s little exclamations.

Ben, on the other hand, dawdled several feet behind them, broodily kicking at the forest floor.

After a few minutes, Leia turned back to regard her son, and provided him with a fond smile. “Got lead in your shoes, Ben?”

He frowned at her and looked away, irritated by her harmless remark.

She slowed her steps and reached an arm around him, matching his pace. “I know things are still difficult for you,” she murmured quietly.

“Mom,” he grunted, visibly uncomfortable.

“But Luke said you’ve been getting better, ever since he brought Rey in,” she continued, ignoring his objection. “Is that true?”

His expression softened infinitesimally at that, but he merely gave a shrug.

“I’m so glad to hear you’re feeling well again, Ben,” she told him earnestly. “Your father and I miss you so much. We can’t wait to have you back.”

Despite himself, Ben had to suppress emotional tears at her words.

“What’s goin’ on?” Han inquired, having stopped to look back at his wife and son. “You two plotting to kill me?”

Rey giggled from atop his shoulders. “Ben, look! That cloud looks like a butt!”

Ben barked out a surprised laugh. “Oh my God, it does.”

After sensing her restless wriggles, Han gently lowered Rey back to the ground.

She scurried over to Ben and latched onto his hand, leading him forwards. “Come on, let’s go find other stuff that looks like a butt. That tree over there is kind of...”

Her childish voice trailed off as she dragged Ben further ahead into the forest.

Han and Leia exchanged a contented look - one that conveyed a mutual feeling that perhaps everything was going to be okay.

* * *

 _Seven_ , _Seventeen_

Rey was chasing a boy at the birthday party she’d been invited to. They were playing tag and running around the host’s backyard, Rey’s eyes fixed intently on her prey as she swerved between legs and ducked beneath tables in pursuit.

She had just about had him within her reach when a leg suddenly stepped out from nowhere, hindering her path. She slammed into its owner - a blonde, older lady holding a drink - unceremoniously flinging its contents onto her white dress and leaving a big, nasty, red stain.

A very undignified noise escaped the woman’s lips. “Ugh!” she shrieked in outrage. “Watch where you’re going, you little brat!”

Rey blinked at the woman in shock, affronted by her outburst. “I-I’m sor-“

“Typical of an orphaned street rat!” the woman continued to rant. “Look at this! This is just ridiculous.”

Rey was about to dissolve into a pathetic, self-loathing puddle of tears at the sting of the woman’s harsh words, when she heard her name being called from somewhere behind her.

Ben came sauntering up to them, casually sipping at a milkshake from a straw. “Rey, come on, time to go. We gotta help Luke with the signs.” He pushed his sunglasses up from his face and into his hair, surveying the scene before him. “Whoa. What happened here?”

The unpleasant woman sniffed and lifted her chin haughtily, planting her hands onto her hips. “Your little sister ran into me and spilled my drink all over me. I suggest that you and your parents teach her some manners.”

Ben narrowed his eyes at her and glanced down at Rey, who he discerned to be very clearly upset from whatever conceited garbage this woman had been throwing at her prior to his arrival. “Hm,” he hummed brusquely.

With an unwavering gaze, he proceeded to flick off the lid of his milkshake and dump its contents all over the woman’s dress, eliciting from her a horrified squeal.

As the surrounding party guests all gasped in reaction, drawing a wide berth around the altercation, Rey gaped at the sight of the mortified woman with unbridled glee, a hysterical giggle bubbling from her lips.

Ben tossed the empty plastic cup at the woman in disdain and promptly whirled around, catching Rey by the hand before storming out of the party with her in tow.

She grinned ecstatically at him as she hopped into his car.

He handed her a pair of sunglasses, which she eagerly slid onto her nose.

The scandalised woman, who had apparently come to her senses, came bounding out of the house and onto the front lawn, glaring them down with murder in her eyes.

Rey and Ben both flipped her off as they took off down the street.

* * *

_Eight, Eighteen_

Rey spotted him from across the ice rink, but very tactfully pretended to have not seen him. She continued to glide around elegantly with her friends, dancing along to the lights and music.

She was halfway through a twirl when she slammed into a tall, hard body.

Ben smiled down at her cockily, having blatantly ignored the protests of the staff and stepped out onto the rink with his shoes on. He caught her by the forearms. “Time to go.”

She released a long, drawn-out groan. “Just five more minutes! Please?” she implored.

“No. Come on.”

“Ben!” she wailed beseechingly. “Five minutes! That’s all I need! Just until this song’s over.”

“This song sucks,” he retorted.

Her expression darkened. “If you don’t give me five more minutes, I’m telling Luke about that time you took his car to go drinking with your friends.”

His jaw clenched. “You little bitch.”

She smirked up at him smugly.

“Fine. Just two more minutes,” he chuckled, releasing her. “When I come back from my piss you better be ready to go.”

“You’re the best!” she called over her shoulder, already skating back to her friends.

“Is that your brother?” one of them whispered to her warily.

“Um... Kind of. Not really,” she answered. “Why?”

“He’s super scary.”

Rey laughed. “Yeah, I know, right?”

* * *

_Eight, Eighteen_

Han and Leia were back in town for Ben’s high school graduation.

After a much-too-long ceremony, comprised almost entirely of some old guy droning out a seemingly endless list of names, Rey found herself hoisted up onto Ben’s shoulders for a celebratory photo. She cheekily plucked his cap from atop his head and lowered it over her own, the headwear being much too big for her and concealing the top half of her face.

“Stop it, you two. That is just too cute,” Han teased from behind the camera.

An hour later, Rey was sandwiched between Luke and Han in a nearby diner for Ben’s graduation dinner, peering timidly over at Ben, who was currently at another booth, joking around boisterously with some kids his age.

“Who’s that girl?” Leia murmured discreetly to Luke, referring to a brunette whose shoulders Ben’s arm was notably slung over. “She’s pretty.”

Luke rolled his eyes. “Don’t get your hopes up. He can hardly hold a relationship longer than I can hold in a fart.”

Rey snickered wildly at that.

He shot her a wink.

“Do you always have to be so crass, Luke?” Leia chided, fighting a smile.

Ben returned to their booth at that moment, sliding in next to his mother. “I’m taking the orders. The sliders here are really good, apparently,” he mentioned.

“Oh, well, then I’ll try one,” she replied.

“Kid? What’ll you have?” Han asked, nudging Rey by the arm.

She shrugged, still vaguely petulant at the fact that Ben had been spending most of the night with his friends over her.

This fact didn’t go over Ben’s head.

“Come on, you wanna come have a look at the ice cream machine?” he suggested, standing from his seat and offering out a hand to her.

She suppressed an elated grin and clambered over Han’s lap, gladly taking Ben’s outstretched hand.

He watched her as her eyes scanned over the various ice cream flavours, smiling fondly at her cute, hungry expression. “Made a choice yet?”

She shook her head absentmindedly.

“Come on. We both know you’re gonna pick chocolate. You always pick chocolate.”

“I do not!” she said defensively.

“You do. You like it because it reminds you of shit.”

“Shut up! You eat shit!” she shrieked exuberantly.

“Whoa,” a nearby voice chuckled in reaction. “What kind of things you been teaching your sister there, Ben?”

Rey turned to find one of Ben’s friends, a bulky, blonde guy, patting Ben on the back.

“She’s not my sister, bro. I’ve told you like a hundred times,” Ben answered. “This is Rey.”

“Rey?” the boy echoed in recognition. “Man, Rey, Ben talks about you all the time.”

“Shut up. I don’t.”

Rey smirked up at him roguishly.

“Careful, you might make Franny jealous,” his friend taunted, jerking his head over to the pretty brunette Leia had noticed earlier.

Ben lightly shoved him at the remark. “Shut _up_.”

His friend laughed, giving him another pat on the shoulder before stalking off.

Rey blinked up at Ben inquisitively. “Is Franny your girlfriend?”

“Um...” Ben mumbled reluctantly. “Kind of.” He returned her wide, curious gaze, and smiled. “Don’t worry. You’ll always be my number one girl.”

She giggled and feebly batted his hands away as he ruffled her by the hair.

* * *

_Nine, Nineteen_

Ben’s car arrived only a few minutes after she’d called him. There was a very unimpressed-looking blonde girl his age in the front passenger seat, arms folded across her chest surlily.

Rey strutted up to the car and jumped into the back, hurling her backpack so carelessly inside that it obnoxiously knocked against the back of the stranger’s seat.

Said stranger’s scowl deepened at the impact.

Ben, on the other hand, was peering back at Rey over his shoulder with an amused smirk. “What’d you do this time?”

Rey blew a strand of her hair from her face with a sulky puff. “He hit me first.”

“I’m sure he did,” Ben chuckled dryly, pulling out of the elementary school parking lot. “Just like all those other poor bastards you put in hospital.”

“Only one of them ended up in hospital and it was because he happened to have an asthma attack at the same time!” Rey exclaimed outrageously, poking her head in-between the two front seats.

Ben snorted, turning to his date to share a smile.

She did not return it.

He quickly sobered. “U-Um... I’m gonna take you home, Rey. You mind being alone for a couple hours?”

“Why? Where are you going?” Rey questioned, sparing the girl in front of her a glance.

“Just...” he trailed off awkwardly. “We’re gonna catch a movie.”

“I wanna see a movie!”

Ben’s date cast him a sharp look.

“It’s not a movie for kids,” he stammered.

“What?” Rey spluttered. “Why are you suddenly being lame? You’ve shown me porn-”

“Shhh!” Ben hushed her, glimpsing his date’s dismayed expression in his peripheral vision.

“This sucks,” Rey complained, slumping into her seat. “Come on, Ben, let me come with you.”

“No,” he stated firmly. “You’re grounded. I can’t let you come with me.”

“Lame,” she muttered, glowering moodily out the window.

He walked her to the door when they arrived back home. “Just promise you’ll stay here, okay? I know when Uncle Luke finds out he’s gonna expect me to have spent the day looking after you.”

“But you’re not,” she spat grumpily.

He faltered. “I... She’s...” he hesitated, gesturing vaguely back at the car.

Rey scoffed. “Whatever.”

She bounded up the stairs, into her room, and threw herself against the window pane to watch Ben leave in his car. She could see him arguing about something with that strange girl through the windows.

And then he kissed her.

“Ew!” Rey cried out in disgust, jerking away.

So that’s why he ditched her.

* * *

_Ten, Twenty_

She found him leaning against the hood of his car with a shopping bag in each hand.

He grinned widely as she approached, shaking the shopping bags at her in hyped excitement. “Who’s ready to bake a cake?”

Rey pressed her lips into a thin line, nodding unconvincingly.

“Look at this shit,” Ben boasted, ransacking the contents of the shopping bags and holding them out demonstratively. “We got...chocolate chips...Oreos...fuckin’ sprinkles... We can make a huge fuckin’ diabetic mess of a dessert with all of this shit at our disposal. Rey, look!” He jiggled a packet of M n’ Ms in front of her nose.

When she didn’t reciprocate his enthusiasm, he slid his sunglasses from his eyes. That was when he saw the bruise on her cheek.

The shopping bags hit the floor with an outraged thump.

“What the fuck is that?” he demanded, cupping a hand over the affected side of her face. “Who did this to you?”

“No-one,” Rey mumbled reticently. But her eyes betrayed her, flitting over to a pack of teenaged boys on bikes nearby.

Ben jerked his head towards them. “Those guys?”

“No,” Rey lied.

“Which one? That fat fuck in the middle?”

She dropped her eyes to her toes, the act itself all the confirmation that Ben needed.

“Ben, wait!” she cried fearfully when he promptly stomped his way across the parking lot.

They’d been laughing and jeering mean-spiritedly at some lurid thing or another, when they spotted the hulking, frightening beast of a man charging towards them. They reactively huddled together in cowardly defence, with the boy who’d wounded Rey being very conspicuously squeezed out in front.

He hesitantly attempted to stand his own ground. “What the hell do you want?” he challenged, a trembly crack in his voice.

Ben sneered at him.

The boy yawped in fright when the man in front of him violently knocked his slushie from his hand.

Ben snagged the boy by the collar and held him very close to his face. “Listen here, you little shit,” he hissed threateningly. “If you ever hurt Rey again, I’m going to break every single bone in your fat, disgusting body. Understand?”

He released him with a forceful shove, causing the boy to stumble backwards and land on the hard concrete below.

Rey watched the confrontation all the way from Ben’s car with deep, deep satisfaction.

Nobody dared to pick on her at school again.

* * *

_Eleven, Twenty-One_

“Alright, kid. Get out.”

Rey gnawed on her lip anxiously as she stared at the middle-school kids bustling around outside their car.

Ben turned to look at her expectantly when she remained rooted in place. “Kid. Get out.”

“I’m scared,” she blurted, gazing at him fearfully. “Those kids look so much bigger than me.”

He rolled his eyes. “We both know you could still kick their ass. Now, come on. I’m gonna be late for my class.”

“Can I just come with you today?” she pleaded.

“What? No. Fuck no,” he scoffed. “Just get out of the car. Everything will be fine once you’re in there.”

“I have no friends in there,” she whimpered. “All my friends went to the other school.”

“Who cares?” he returned. “Most of the kids in your grade in there don’t have friends either. You’ll make friends.”

“I won’t make friends,” she cried. “I’m weird and no-one likes me.”

“You’re definitely weird, but that’s fine,” he told her. “You’ll find other weirdos in there and you’ll make friends with them. Weirdos end up being cooler than the normal kids when they grow up, anyway.”

“I’m not thinking that far ahead,” she murmured.

He groaned frustratedly, banging his head against the steering wheel. “I knew I should’ve gotten Luke to drive you.”

“Take me with you to college, Ben! It sounds like so much fun,” she begged. “I’ll help you put glue on the toilet seats like you told me you did last time.”

He released a hearty laugh. “Yeah, no, I got in a lot of trouble for that last time.”

“Please, Ben?” she implored.

He sighed. “Tell you what. I’ll let you come with me if you do one thing for me.”

“What? Anything!” she exclaimed eagerly.

“Can you check if I left the gas cap open? I don’t remember if I closed it on the way here.”

“Oh, shit, okay,” she agreed, quickly hopping out of the car.

She screamed out in rage when Ben immediately lobbed her backpack out the open window and pulled out from the curb, leaving her stranded to her middle-school doom. “You asshole!” she shouted after him, stomping a livid foot and drawing the attention of her nearby schoolmates.

She could see him giving her the finger outside the driver’s seat window.

* * *

_Twelve, Twenty-Two_

At the first sound of Rey entering through the front door, Ben and Luke instantly shared a knowing look across the table.

Ben snorted, merely shaking his head and returning to the papers he’d been working on for Luke.

Luke sighed and set his pen and glasses down, turning to face the open door of his study. “Rey?” he called out sternly.

She sheepishly trudged into the room, her eyes fixed stonily onto her feet.

“Why are you home early today from school?” Luke questioned, already knowing the answer.

She sighed. “I got into a fight.”

“ _What_?” Ben sputtered, feigning surprise. “ _You_? A fight? But this has never happened before!”

“Shut up!” she growled at him, especially aggressive about it today.

“Somebody’s defensive,” Luke teased, despite being mildly unhappy with her. “I’m disappointed, Rey,” he told her sincerely. “You haven’t gotten into a fight since you started middle school. I was starting to think that you’d grown up a little.”

“It wasn’t my fault this time! He kissed me!” Rey blurted.

Both men’s jaws fell open.

“What?” Ben yelped, thoroughly amused. “A boy kissed you? So you beat him up?”

“Not exactly,” she mumbled, her cheeks flaming red. “He surprised me. I didn’t know what to do. I just went into default mode.”

Luke chortled, unable to maintain his steely facade.

“That...is...fucking...hilarious,” Ben deadpanned.

“ _Ben_ ,” Luke groaned agitatedly. “How many times do I have to tell you? Don’t use that sort of language around Rey.”

“Oh, come on!” Ben moaned back. “She’s twelve! Every kid that age is using that language.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want her learning these things from you at home.”

“Why? Because you still think I’m a bad influence on her?” Ben confronted.

Luke stared back at him wordlessly.

Ben scoffed, gathering his papers and standing. “I’m finishing off the rest of these depos upstairs. Call me when dinner’s ready,” he muttered sullenly, briskly flouncing out of the room.

Rey frowned at Luke in puzzlement, who only sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

* * *

_Twelve, Twenty-Two_

Rey was still awake, secretly reading a comic book under her bed covers with a torch, when she heard the commotion of Ben arriving home that night.

She slammed her book shut and crawled out from her bed, darting over to the window. She peeked down at the driveway, where she could barely make out Ben very noisily exiting a friend’s car in the dark.

“Nah, don’t worry about it, man,” he slurred loudly to the driver. “I’ll be fine.”

Rey watched him stumble towards the house, wincing at what was inevitably waiting for him inside.

Luke.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Luke demanded, his incensed voice travelling all the way up the stairs.

Rey rushed over to her bedroom door and pressed her ear up against it, eavesdropping intently.

She heard Ben groan.

“What?” he grumbled. “Get off my back. I’m an adult man, I can do whatever I want.”

“Do you know how late it is?” Luke scolded.

“God, how old do you think I am?” Ben retorted. “I’m in college. People party this late, alright?”

“Not when they have an important interview in the morning at nine a.m.!” Luke exploded. “What’s the matter with you, Ben? You reek of booze and weed.”

“Everyone in college does it!” Ben shouted back. “God, I’m so sick of having to abide by your weird Christian ideals.”

“I’m not angry at you for that!” Luke spat. “I’m furious with you because you know that it took your mother a lot of effort to set up this interview, and you’re basically throwing it all back in her face!”

“I told you, her, Dad, and pretty much all of the Northern fucking hemisphere that I don’t want to go to this interview!” Ben ranted. “I don’t give a shit about it! In fact, I hope I don’t get it!”

“Then you are even stupider than I thought,” Luke hissed coldly.

Both Ben and Rey winced at the iciness of Luke’s words.

Rey waited with bated breath for the next break in the long silence that ensued.

It was the enraged stomps of Ben’s footsteps as he ascended the stairs.

She quickly sprung back into bed, in case he decided to come to her for comfort, as he had done many times in the past.

But he marched right past her room, the harsh bang of his door making her flinch.

* * *

_Thirteen, Twenty-Three_

Rey kicked at a stone as she strolled home from school, simultaneously wondering what Luke or Ben was cooking for dinner that night. She skipped up the porch steps and let herself in through the front door, humming a jovial tune as she kicked her shoes off inside.

She froze when she heard the muffle of angry voices in the kitchen.

Slowly, she crept over to the source of the commotion, her heart pounding fast in her chest.

“Because it’s not what I want to do!” Ben shouted angrily.

She paused behind the kitchen door.

“Ben, please,” Leia urged softly.

Rey didn’t know that Ben’s parents were in town.

“Think about what you’re saying here. You’re thinking about moving across the country to work for a dishonourable man,” Leia continued. “All the while, you could be staying here, working at your uncle’s firm on noble cases for good, deserving people.”

“At least Snoke intends to _pay_ me for putting in hours and hours of work! That’s more than I can say about you, _Uncle_!” Ben spat resentfully.

“Ben,” Luke said. “If this is about money-”

“No. You know what?” Ben chuckled bitterly. “This isn’t even about the money. This is about what it’s always been about. You - all of you - wanting me to become something I don’t want to be, that I never wanted to be, and heaping all these shitty expectations on me that drive me to insanity and depression.”

“That was never our intention, and you know that,” Leia argued.

“It doesn’t matter if it was your intention or not! That’s what happened!” Ben exploded. “And that’s what is continuing to happen right now! I’ve made my decision! I want to be free from all of you and the life choices that you are _smothering_ me with!”

“Son, we just feel like you are losing sight of who you are,” Han spoke up with concern. “All of this stuff that this Snoke guy’s got you doing for him... Don’t you see how wrong it is?”

“There’s no right or wrong in law,” Ben retorted. “There’s no black and white. It’s all greys, and as a lawyer, the only thing that you can be sure of is doing your own job properly and upholding the system.”

“But First Order goes against practically everything that your mother and this entire family stands for-”

“I don’t give a fuck!”

“Rey,” Luke interjected, spotting the young girl peeking at them from around the door. He glanced up at the clock hanging overhead, realising what time it was.

Ben’s eyes darted sharply over to where Rey was lurking, and he groaned and dropped his head into his hands. His fingers made distressed fists in his hair.

Han stood, the feet of his chair scraping loudly against the kitchen floor. “Rey, why don’t we go out for a bit? Get some frozen yoghurt?”

Rey frowned worriedly and scrutinised every distraught adult in the room, her gaze finally settling on Ben. “W...? What’s happening?” she mumbled.

Han hurriedly ushered her out of the room, leading her outside the house by the small of her back. “Ben, Leia, and Luke are just...having a talk. Don’t worry too much about it.”

They headed over to his car, parked on the other side of the road, and tensely hopped inside.

As Han pulled out from the curb, Rey’s face grew hot with a daunting realisation.

“Is Ben going somewhere?” she asked.

Han didn’t respond.

* * *

_Thirteen, Twenty-Three_

The slam of a car door woke her up. She didn’t know why, and she didn’t know how, but she recognised that it was him.

Fighting against the grogginess of sleep, Rey scrambled out from beneath her blankets and padded over to her window. She peeked through the blinds and down at the front porch, where Luke was already standing in anticipation of his nephew’s arrival.

Ben marched steadfastly from the still-running taxi and towards the house, stubbornly ignoring his uncle’s pleas.

“Ben-”

“I’m only here for her.”

His impactful words echoed up the staircase as he passed the front doorframe.

She hurriedly scampered back into bed at the booming thumps of his impending footsteps and ducked her head beneath the covers, resolutely turning to face the wall.

Three timid knocks sounded at her door, but all she did was huff and keep still.

Surely enough, the door creaked open, a sliver of light sweeping across the room.

“Rey,” he called quietly, gently tiptoeing towards her.

She stirred, pulling the blanket more snugly around herself, but said nothing.

“I came to say goodbye,” he whispered, squatting beside her bed.

Obstinate, she kept her lips sealed, despite all the things she wanted to shout at him at that moment.

He sighed. “This is the last time you’ll see me for a while. Do you really want it to be like this?”

Cold, unrelenting silence.

He propped one arm up onto the bed and dropped his head into it. “I wish I could make you understand,” he mumbled. “Maybe one day, when you’re older, you will.”

 _I’ll never understand_ , she wanted to say.

“Please,” he implored. “Don’t hate me for this.”

 _I do_.

He waited a long time for a response, but it never came. Two agitated beeps from the taxi driver outside were what prompted him to eventually stand, removing himself from Rey’s bedside. “I’ll call you when I get there, okay?”

She felt his hand on her back - the only gesture of farewell she’d allowed him to give her.

“Goodbye.”

A few dull, reluctant footsteps later, and her door swung shut, snuffing out all light in the room.

It wasn’t until he’d descended all of the stairs that it finally hit her.

He really was leaving.

With a startled gasp, she whipped the blankets from her body, clambering desperately out of bed. She almost tripped down the entire staircase in her panicked haste to chase after him, her heart squeezing with ache and urgency. With frenzied breaths, she flew past Luke, sprinting barefoot onto the driveway. “Wait!” she screamed, her voice hoarse with grief. “Come back!”

But Ben’s taxi had just rounded the corner, taking with it the only person in the world she really needed.

Hot, heaving sobs wracked her small body, and she doubled over, clutching at her own sides.

Luke’s compassionate hand closed over her shoulder, and he tucked the little girl into his side, sharing in every ounce of her pain.

Things would never be the same.

* * *

_Eighteen_

“Ben.”

The name tumbles from her lips as consciousness slowly seeps back into her body. A dull ache plagues her chest at the phantom grief of a time long past.

She hasn’t thought about him properly in years, never allowing herself to slip and fall back into the excruciating nostalgia of the memories. But her subconscious mind had inadvertently dredged them up last night, and, upon reflection, Rey supposes that it would make sense for it to happen today.

“Rey!” a gruff voice reverberates up the stairs. “You better be awake, young lady! You’re leaving for college in precisely twenty minutes!”

Rey groans and yanks her blanket far over her head.

It’s been five years since he left.


	2. A few years had gone and come around

A young man bursts through the doors of an office building, earnest relief humming through his veins. Stepping out from that building, knowing that he will never return, feels like the sweetest escape.

He doesn’t even flinch at the heavy rain battering down upon him as he traipses out into the open air, too overjoyed to care about getting soaked.

Never again. Never again will he step foot inside that wretched building, with those wretched people, and work on another wretched case. The job and financial security were never worth it for him. He put his foot down today and made a pivotal choice. It doesn’t matter how prestigious they are, or how much they paid him. He isn’t going to work for First Order anymore.

He rounds the first corner, marching jovially down the street. Every step that he takes widens the distance between himself and that cursed hellhole, thrusting him closer to a path of freedom and redemption.

The splashing of the rain rings loudly in his ears, analogous to the loud, buzzing sensation of euphoria swimming around in his skull - so loudly, in fact, that it almost entirely conceals the blood-curdling scream that pierces through the air from somewhere across the road.

He snaps his head towards the sound to find a young woman at a bus stop, grappling violently with a hooded man over her own backpack. His feet spring to action of their own accord, urgently carrying him to her rescue. “Hey!” he cries out hoarsely. But his voice is cloaked by the torrential downpour of rain, drawing no attention from the wrangling pair.

The young woman bares her teeth aggressively at her assailant, her eyes blazing with a combative fire. With a ferocity that only someone with plenty of experience in a brawl could possess, she fiercely whips her elbow across the man’s cheekbone - once, and then another time. His grip on her backpack instantly yields and he stumbles sideways, fumbling for the pole of the bus stop sign to catch himself onto. But his adversary is unrelenting, hoisting her backpack firmly over both shoulders and then proceeding to knee him savagely in the stomach.

The bystander skids to a surprised halt from his place across the street.

The thief doubles over in pain, but has enough sense to stagger impotently away, no doubt thinking twice before ever attempting the same feat again.

His victim - if she can still even be considered as such - shouts discordant slurs at him as he retreats, apparently more wrathful towards him than ever frightened. Her shoulders heave with blatant fury and she flips him off spitefully, before pulling the headphones around her neck back over her ears.

The man across the street is absolutely enthralled by this extraordinary woman, his feet automatically resuming their trajectory towards her in stuttering treads. “H-Hey,” he calls out to her, much more audible now that the rain has subsided.

She glances up at him warily, lowering her headphones.

“Sorry, I...” He swallows. “Are you okay? I saw all that.”

“You did?” she says, almost abashedly. “Look, he tried to steal my shit-”

“I know,” he assures her. “I saw. I was going to help you, but...looks like you didn’t need it.”

She purses her lips and gives a one-shouldered shrug, like her extraordinary display of self-defence was nothing.

He narrows his eyes at her in a sort of fascination. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

“School.”

He laughs, mistaking her bluntness for a joke.

She merely raises her eyebrows at him.

He sobers. “Oh. Really?”

“Yeah, I...” She pauses, hesitant. “I was a contentious kid.”

He chuckles, her honesty endearing to him. “Well, looks like it came in handy today.”

“Yeah,” she chuckles back, warming up to his unwavering friendliness. “Saved me another laptop. I left my old one on the subway. I _cannot_ afford another one, let me tell you.”

He grins at her, and she finds his companionable nature infectious.

“But thank you for thinking of helping me,” she adds, holding out a hand. “Uh...”

“Finn,” he responds, taking it. “My name’s Finn.”

She smiles. “I’m Rey.”

* * *

“So what were you doing, by the way?”

Finn looks up from his plate with raised eyebrows as he stuffs another large bite of waffle into his mouth. “What do you mean?” he muffles through his food.

“You were just dancing around in the rain without an umbrella? You were soaked,” she elaborates, completely unfazed by his lack of table manners. In fact, she scoops up a hefty bite of her own food into her mouth and chomps on it noisily.

“Oh,” he grunts in comprehension, before pausing to swallow his bite. “I just quit my job.”

“Oh, that sucks,” she tuts empathetically.

“No, it’s great!” he exclaims elatedly, beaming at her. “I was dancing around in the rain because of how crazy  _happy_ I was. I’m finally free of those fucking First Order thugs.”

“First Order? Thugs?” she echoes, his colourful wording piquing her interest. “Aren’t they that big law firm? What do you mean, they’re thugs?”

He heaves a long sigh. “I didn’t work there long. I was just an intern there. But it didn’t take much for me to figure out that those dickheads are, without a doubt, the worst, most despicable law firm in Canto Bight City. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I applied. I just wanted a job. But when I started working there, I realised what kind of place they really are.”

She stares at him inquisitively, her eyes gleaming with curiosity. “What kind?” she presses.

“They take on all the cases that no-one else wants to because they’re too straight-up unethical,” he tells her bluntly. “The rapists, the pedophiles, the child-murderers, the terrorists...”

Her eyebrows come down into a disturbed crease. “Oh. I see.”

“And it seems like they exclusively take on those kinds of cases, like they get off on defending the bad guys,” Finn rants. “In fact, that’s how they market themselves. They know that those cases are too taboo to be easily taken on, so they target that niche. Come to us, we’ll welcome you with open arms.” He shakes his head in disdain. “I was put on a case that would refuse a woman the right to abort her rapist’s baby, just on a technicality. From that moment on, I knew I couldn’t work for First Order anymore. I quit.”

Her expression progressively softens over the course of his story. She smiles at him with warm eyes and earnest dimples, admiring the man in front of her for his powerful sense of integrity. “Well, what are you gonna do now?”

He blows out a tired puff of air. “I have no idea. I’ll need to find a new job before I finish my degree if I wanna graduate employed.”

“You go to CBU?”

“Yeah, you?”

“Yeah.”

It is in that moment that a very compelling thought suddenly occurs to Rey.

“You know what, Finn?” she pipes up, her tone laced with fascination. “I think I have someone who’d like to meet you.”

* * *

Rey is one of the very few who was lucky enough to be assigned a roommate she instantly got along with from the very first day of college.

Rose Tico is kind, compassionate, fiercely-loyal, relates to Rey’s oddball sense of humour in a way that she has rarely encountered in other people, and is an extremely outspoken social justice activist. The final trait is what inspires Rey to introduce her to Finn, whose latest tidbit on First Order is bound to be of exceptional interest to a passionate warrior such as Rose.

And it is, as expected.

“How have I never heard of them before?” Rose splutters theatrically, flinging her arms in the air. “First Order! We have got to add them to our shit list.”

The three are gathered around a picnic table on campus grounds, sharing an oversized bag of extreme-flavour Doritos and sipping from paper cups of cheap coffee.

“Shit list?” Finn queries, eyeing the new girl before him with apprehension.

“Rose’s ‘shit list’ is basically a protest roster for her club,” Rey explains, an amused smirk playing on her lips.

“Your club participates in public protests?” Finn questions. “Isn’t that a bit much? What kind of club is this?”

“We’re called the Social Solidarity Society. S-S-S,” Rose proclaims proudly.

Finn immediately turns to shoot Rey a weary expression. “This is why you wanted to introduce us?”

“Hey, do you wanna get back at those rat bastards or not?” Rey reasons. “You wanna give First Order hell, just send Rose and her band of social justice warriors after them.”

Rose slams her hands against the table and leans forward excitedly. “We once got a councilman recalled because he said that his female colleagues can’t function properly when they’re on their period.”

Finn blinks at her in astonishment. “This stuff really invigorates you, huh?” he mutters, intimidated by the vivacious glint in her eye.

“Rose is just...passionate about these things,” Rey says with a fond smile at her closest friend.

“Getting a misogynistic councilman fired was just about the most invigorating experience of my life,” Rose breathes. Her eyes glaze over in rapture.

“Well, if you’re looking for another nasty councilman to take down...” Finn begins, glancing around himself guardedly.

Rey and Rose scoot forward in their seats in curiosity.

“The CEO of First Order - this creepy, old fuck named Snoke - is running for city councilman,” Finn divulges in a hushed murmur. “He hasn’t announced it yet, but his campaign should start up pretty soon. And I’d imagine his policies won’t be too far off from the sick, fucked-up way he’s been running First Order.”

“I say we nip that motherfucker in the bud before he even gets a chance,” Rose hisses fervently, and bangs a clenched fist onto the table.

A smile curls across Finn’s lips. “Now you’re speaking my language.”

* * *

“You, hold this. You, this. And you! Stop fucking around!”

Finn blinks at Rose with wide, astounded eyes as she brusquely barks out her orders - the last and most imperious one directed straight at him.

Rey simpers and shoves a signpost into his hands, shooting him an easygoing wink. “Just go with it,” she advises lightly. “It’ll be fun if you just let go of your sense of shame or self-awareness.”

His features twist into a comical grimace that makes her laugh. “You know, I’m not exactly sure I have it in me to do that.”

Rey snatches up her own signpost from the ground and spins it leisurely in her hands. “Try,” she quips.

“Alright, people!” Rose yells over the admittedly sparse crowd of spirited college students congregated in front of the First Order building. She’s sporting a rather intimidating megaphone, her voice all the more shrill and domineering through the amplified volume. “Remember what we’re here for! These sick, corrupt pigs are up there right now, defending rapists, child molesters, abusive racists, and pretty much everything that we stand against! And their biggest dog, Snoke, thinks he can run for office in our city and let this kind of poisonous nonsense seep into government policy! Let’s teach them boundless shame and self-hatred for their despicable actions! Let’s say ‘no’ to First Order! Let’s say ‘no’ to Snoke!”

Her audience responds with vigour, pumping their fists into the air as they echo her sentiments back to her.

Finn cringes as he spots curious onlookers in his periphery, and reflexively conceals himself behind the cardboard sign in his hands. “What am I doing here?” he murmurs through clenched teeth. “If they see me here, they’re gonna know for sure I started this. They’re gonna hate me even more.”

“So what? They’re dicks. You said it yourself,” Rey drawls with a careless shrug. “You don’t need to be in their good graces. You’re never working for them again.”

“No to fascism!” the crowd chants, making Finn flinch.

“It’s just...embarrassing,” he hisses.

“No to First Order!” they chant again.

Rey giggles at Finn’s bashful hunch, playfully punching him on the shoulder. “Come on. Just get into it. No to Snoke!” she shouts along with Rose and the crowd.

“There are, like, five people here-”

“No to fascism!” Rey screams in Finn’s ear, prompting him to recoil in fright.

“Come on, Rey-”

“No to First Order!” she cries, interrupting him once more.

At the look of pure, unadulterated humour in her eyes, Finn begins to wonder if the girl in front of him has ever participated in anything unironically, or if life is just one big satire to her. The thought alone is enough to ease his tension, his arms slowly relaxing as he lowers the signpost from his face. A smile creeps its way across his lips, the hilarity of the situation finally dawning upon him.

She raises her eyebrows at him expectantly, shouting, “No to Snoke!”

He glances around himself self-consciously before mouthing a timid, “No to fascism.”

Her goofy smile widens, and she prods her sign higher and more vigorously up in the air as their voices gradually blend into the harmonious chant of the crowd.

It’s about another ten minutes of this same chorus, with a few more colourful verses sprinkled in between, when Rose’s loud, hysterical voice discordantly slices through the steady rhythm.

“Holy shit, they’re coming out!”

The glass double-doors to the building slide open. A red-haired, particularly disdainful-looking man is the first to march determinedly out, sporting a rather disparaging snarl. He is followed by a number of solemn, stern-faced employees, all dressed in black and hard on his heels. The redhead casts a look of contempt across the crowd of students, who keenly jump at the opportunity to raucously berate him to his face, before ducking his head and carelessly and aggressively shoving his way across the road.

Finn recognises him, the manic grin plastered on his face immediately faltering as he hunches his shoulders in shame. “Oh, God, I know that guy,” he wails over Rey’s shoulder.

She twists around to flash a mischievous smirk at him, fully prepared to take whatever action necessary to embarrass him as much as she possibly can.

But that’s when she sees him.

A final First Order employee emerges from inside the building, having regretfully straggled behind the rest of his team.

The signpost in Rey’s hand slides out from her loosened grip and hits the ground with an emphatic thud. HEr limbs grow numb as an unexpected revelation thwacks her in the face.

_It’s him._

He’s completely transformed in appearance - his face entirely clean-shaven, his hair neatly slicked back with gel, and dressed immaculately in a suit and tie - but it is undeniable. She’d recognise him from a mile away.

“Ben?” she gasps.

The mildly irritated expression on his features quickly morphs into one of shock, even before he reactively twists around to meet her eye. At the mere sound of her voice, his feet abruptly skid to a stop against the cement, and he whips his head around to gape at her with wide eyes and a slack jaw. “Rey?” he breathes.

Time almost freezes as they face each other, so much tension, emotion, and unspoken words madly buzzing between them. Years and years of distance and silence have culminated into this single moment - an explosive reunion, conjured by happenstance and, arguably, fate. After so long of individually wondering where they went wrong, the two are finally back together, the chance to settle all of their unanswered questions more within their grasp than ever before.

But their shared moment is brutally interrupted in the loudest, most jarring way possible.

“No to fascism! No to First Order!” Rose’s voice blares through the megaphone shoved directly into Ben’s stunned face. “Shame on councilman candidate Snoke! Shame on _you_!”

Her deafening reproach echoes thunderously past the waning commotion of the crowd, before trailing off into awkward silence.

Rey’s and Ben’s eyes are still fixated solely on each other, despite the incongruous interjection from Rose’s megaphone.

Rose glances between the two people in front of her, a slow wave of mortification gradually flooding over her as she mentally pieces the puzzle together. “Do you two know each other?”

Before either of them can even muster a word in response, Ben is suddenly whisked away by two of his coworkers, forcibly led by the arms to the parked limousine awaiting them on the other side of the road.

“Time to go, Ren. Boss ain’t gonna be happy we’re late,” one of them mutters.

“Wait... Wait!” Ben hisses urgently, reluctantly gazing back over his shoulder at Rey.

But the crowd is a conspicuous wedge between them, wrenching them further and further apart. Soon, he is gone, and she is left staring after him yearningly, once again, as a car takes him far, far away.

Finn looks down at a visibly shaken Rey, still in utter disbelief about what he just witnessed. “You know Kylo Ren?”


	3. I wasn’t that little girl you used to see

“Yeah, he goes by Kylo Ren, now,” Finn informs her.

Rey is still reeling from the fleeting exchange, even now, hours later, as she and her friends nurse some drinks at a campus bar. She takes a sip of her beer with trembling hands, eyes glazed over, so lost in her own frenzy of thoughts.

_So this is where he’s been._

“So he’s like your brother, or your cousin, or something,” Finn summarises.

Rey winces. “Kind of. But it was always weird to think of him that way, for some reason.”

“Why was he staying with you and his uncle anyway? Why didn’t he stay with his own parents?” he questions.

“He had some...problems in his early childhood,” she divulges. “Mental health. That kinda thing. It got worse when Leia won her first election and her personal life was thrust out into public scrutiny. They just thought it’d be better if they sent him to live somewhere quieter. Eventually, he did get better, but I think he grew to like it there, with us, so he stayed.”

“God, I’m sorry, but I can’t imagine you, and Kylo Ren,” Finn says disbelievingly, demonstratively holding out each hand and then clasping them together, “living in the same house, eating dinner together, sharing a father figure...”

“Why not?” Rey queries.

“Because...!” Finn trails off into a splutter. “Because you’re a good, upstanding person! And he’s just...terrible! Nasty to everyone, shitty attitude-”

“That’s always been Ben,” she points out. Despite herself, she’s unable to hide the affectionate undertone in her remark.

“Yeah, and besides, if you think Rey is an angel, then you don’t know her very well,” Rose snorts, concealing her smirk with her own glass of beer.

“I just don’t understand how two people can grow up together and end up being so different,” Finn concludes with a resigned sigh.

“Ben and I were always pretty similar, actually,” Rey mentions thoughtfully. “But then he left, and I haven’t seen him in six years, so I guess anything could’ve happened to him.” She scowls down at her drink, lightly shaking her head. “Working for First Order. This is what Luke and Leia were so upset at him for.”

“They never told you?”

“No. After he left, things changed dramatically. I was always kept out of the loop. I think they were afraid of losing me like they lost him, so they always gave me tons of space away from that shit.“

“But you two clearly meant a lot to each other,” Rose pipes up. “I could see it in your eyes.”

Rey struggles not to blush. “We...”

“So why would he just leave you like that?” Rose ponders.

“He...” Rey hesitates. “Like I said, he always felt smothered.”

“By his family. But what about you? Why did he leave you?” Rose presses.

“He tried getting in touch with me for a long time,” Rey admits begrudgingly. “He called me every day. Messaged me constantly. I was just too hurt to answer. Eventually, I just locked the memory of him away in a sort of mental vault and tried to forget about him, and when I got a new phone and changed my number, I pretty much cut him out altogether.”

“Excellent choice,” Finn praises, clapping her proudly on the back. “A-plus life decision-making right there. You do not need that guy in your life, Rey, trust me.”

“You’re probably right,” Rey agrees, albeit quite morosely.

“The whole thing just sounds so...” Rose hesitates, grimacing in deep rumination. “It’s just so complicated. I can’t even begin to figure it out.”

“Trust me, six years of sleeping on it ain’t gonna do shit, either,” Rey mutters dryly.

“Just forget about that jack-off, Rey,” Finn insists, before energetically downing the remainder of his drink. “You have a much better life now without him.”

“Yeah,” she agrees weakly, halfheartedly. “I’ll just forget about him.”

* * *

Rey is dozing off in her morning lecture when her phone screen lights up with a notification.

Somehow she knew, almost immediately after their chance encounter, that he would eventually reach out to her. She just didn’t expect for it to come so soon.

“So this is why I couldn’t find you on Facebook,” his message reads. “You were hiding under a fake surname.”

She stares at the notification for a very long time, about a million thoughts whirring through her head as she endeavours to decipher every implication behind his words.

 _He must’ve found me through the CBU page_ , she deduces. _That stalker._

She chews at her nails as she ponders her response. “New phone who dis?” she types back, before quickly dropping her phone face-down onto her desk with a resolute thud.

She skims the lecture notes in front of her without really absorbing anything in a futile attempt to distract herself whilst awaiting his response.

It comes only a few moments later.

Her phone is back in her hands a fraction of a second after it buzzed, her eyes hungrily drinking in his words.

“That would’ve been funny in 2014.”

Her thumbs fly across the screen in prompt reply. “You’re one to talk about fake names.”

“It’s my legal name now.”

“Then you’re literally a dork for bothering to file all that paperwork.”

“And you’re literally a dork for bothering to participate in a public protest with, like, five other people outside my office.”

“I didn’t know you work there.”

“That wasn’t the point, but now I’m starting to think you did.”

“I didn’t.”

“Missed me, did you?”

Her hands freeze. Suddenly, she is at a loss for a witty response. She closes the messaging app and overturns her phone on the desk, electing to ignore his all-too-confrontational question.

She picks up her pen and forces herself to tune back in to her lecture, squinting at the words projected on the screen behind the professor’s head.

Her phone vibrates again on the desk in front of her, eliciting an instinctive twitch from her hand.

 _Focus_ , she scolds herself. _He’s not worth your time._

But her hand seems to have a mind of its own, idly creeping its way across the desk and upturning her phone.

“Why did you never call?”

She gulps.

Hesitantly but unthinkingly, her thumbs tap out the truth. “You left.”

The bitter, old feelings of betrayal are painstakingly dredged up by her accusal, seeping into her chest like black, viscous sludge. For so long, she’s been swallowing down this particular pain, desperate to forget what it felt like to be so carelessly abandoned. But it appears as though she can’t run from it any further.

“I called you every day for a while,” he reminds her.

“It doesn’t matter. You left us,” she argues. “You sold your soul and left us.”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand,” he laments. “I knew they’d try to brainwash you like they did with me.”

“Your family didn’t need to do shit for me to realise you abandoned us out of selfishness.”

“We weren’t supposed to fall out of touch.”

“Then what was supposed to happen?”

“I wanted to take you with me.”

“Well, fuck, I better thank God every day _that_ didn’t happen. Imagine how fucked up I’d be with you raising me.”

“You ended up coming to me anyway.”

She can sense the smugness just radiating from his words. “I didn’t know you ended up here, or I would’ve given Canto Bight a wide berth.”

“You going to CBU?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you studying?”

“Politics.”

“Ew, why?”

Her eyebrows knit together in an indignant scowl. “Because that’s what I want to do?”

“What are your plans for after you graduate?”

“I’m going to work for your mother.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No.“

“You’re making a huge mistake, Rey.”

“Thanks. I certainly appreciate receiving life advice from you.”

“Trust me, you’d get so much further living like I do than however Leia has meticulously groomed you for.”

“You think you sound like such a grownup, referring to your mom by her first name, but it actually sounds childish as fuck.”

“Like you’re so mature, loitering outside my office with a bunch of other teenagers, waving signs and yelling about things you don’t even know.”

“I know everything I need to know about you and your vile firm.”

“You do? That’s funny. Or do you just know what Finntern the intern has told you?”

“Finn is a nice guy and a good person. That’s already more than anyone can say about you.”

“Have you already forgotten how many rides I’ve given you?“

“That was before you abandoned me.”

“I never abandoned you. You ignored me.”

“Because you abandoned me.”

They’re going in circles, but Rey can’t help it; she’s hurt, she’s resentful, she’s angry. She’ll dance around in infinite loops of immature squabbling if it means getting the last word with him.

“Let’s have dinner,” he unexpectedly proposes.

She grits her teeth together, immediately conflicted. She’s hated this guy with immense passion for quite some time, but some innate part of her still longs for his attention. She can feel pre-teen Rey, buried deep inside of her, aching to go on another wild adventure with Ben Solo.

“No,” she declines.

“Why not?”

“Homework.”

“When are you free, then?”

“Never.”

“Friday?”

“No.”

“Come on.”

“I have a thing, anyway.”

“What thing?”

“Law society cocktail night.”

“Did Finntern invite you?”

“Stop calling him that, and no. My friend and I are bringing him there to salvage the remains of his law career after you guys tore it to shreds.”

“He did that himself by quitting one of the largest firms in the city. He’s a loser.”

“And yet, I’m spending my Friday night with him over you. Now who’s the loser?”

He never responds to that.

After a good ten minutes of waiting, Rey finally concedes with an angry huff and a loud thud of her phone against the table.

* * *

“What the fuck is he doing here?” Rey growls through clenched teeth, thoroughly appalled at what she’s seeing.

That undeniable mop of black hair taunts her from across the room. Ben Solo is leaning against the bar, conversing with a couple of creepy white dudes, when he “casually” looks over, spots her, and holds up a hand in a wave.

She shoots him a phoney smile and responds with the finger.

“Maybe he’s stalking you,” Rose mentions offhandedly, sipping at her drink through a straw. “But, to be fair, First Order was invited to this function. They’re the law society’s biggest sponsor.”

“And we brought Finn right to them. He’s gonna love us for that,” Rey bleats sarcastically.

“Where is Finn, anyway?” Rose inquires, craning her neck to survey the function room.

Rey glances at her watch. “Off networking, probably. I lost him around eight.”

“This place blows,” Rose grouses.

“Yeah. I thought lawyers knew how to party,” Rey concurs. “You wanna ditch and go throw rocks at trains?”

“Yes to the first bit.”

“Eh. I’ll get you to come around.”

“Ladies!” Finn calls out to them, emerging from the crowd. He throws both arms around their shoulders, clearly already a bit tipsy. “How are we going tonight?”

“We are going,” Rey replies, matching his jovial tone, “to leave.”

“What?” Finn splutters as he yanks his arms back in consternation. “No-no-no-no-no-no-no. We’re not leaving yet. The night’s only just begun!”

“I guess you’re right,” Rose muses, peering at something over Finn’s shoulder. “Those First Order douchebags have only just started making their way over in this very direction.”

Finn and Rey both whirl around in alarm to find Ben and his First Order posse fast approaching, deftly manoeuvring their way through the crowd.

Finn’s change of tune can’t come any faster. “Okay. That settles it. Let’s go!”

“Yeah,” Rey instantly agrees, before the both of them make a simultaneous attempt to escape.

But Finn’s name rings, true and undeniable, over the yammer of the crowd, and it is too late for either of them to pretend they don’t hear it.

They both begrudgingly turn back to meet their fate.

The one who called Finn’s name - a frail, simply decrepit old man - smirks at them haughtily with his chin ever-so-slightly upturned. “Finn,” he greets him once again. “So good to run into you.”

Finn presses his lips into a thin line and offers the three men a stiff nod of acknowledgement. “Gentlemen.”

“Surprised to see you here, Finn,” Ben pipes up. “I’d have thought you’d completely flushed your law career down the toilet when you left us.”

Finn’s lip curls into a half-smile, half-sneer. “Nope,” he forces out tersely. “I’ve just chosen to go in a slightly different direction.”

“Yeah, not everyone grows up dreaming about defending child-molesters, _Ben_ ,” Rey blurts, unable to help herself.

Everyone turns to regard Rey with surprise at her rather audacious jibe - except for Ben, who merely narrows his eyes at her.

“Well, I’d like to think that the work we do goes a little further than that,” the elderly man speaks up, powering tactfully through Rey’s candid outburst. “Think of it more as ensuring that legal representation is provided to _all_ who are entitled to it, no matter the allegation. To uphold the justice system, we must remain unbiased, after all.” His eyes gleam with a sudden intrigue for the confrontational young woman in front of him, and he holds out a slender hand to her. “But it’s a pleasure to engage in a healthy debate with such an impassioned, young mind. I am Snoke.”

”Snoke?” Rey echoes. She darts a glance at Rose and Finn.

They return her gaze with measured ones of their own.

“I know who you are,” she continues, and obstinately refuses to return his handshake. “You’re running for office.”

“Indeed,” he confirms, seemingly pleased by her recognition. “With the help of my two best lawyers, here,” he adds, gesturing to Ben and the other man - a sour-faced redhead - on either side of him. “Armitage Hux, and _Kylo Ren_.”

Rey does not miss the passive-aggressive tonal emphasis on Ben’s alter ego.

“Yes,” the redhead, Hux, mutters bitterly, peering down at them with barely-disguised disdain. “We‘ve met. These are the troublesome, little _activists_ who caused a ruckus in front of our office the other day.”

“Oh, you were there, were you? Must’ve missed you,” Rose answers derisively, returning his glower with a fierce one of her own. “Yes, well, we were only exercising our right to express ourselves on public domain. There’s no law against that, is there?”

“Maybe when Snoke wins his seat in office, he should consider proposing a bill,” Hux retaliates.

“ _If_ he wins it,” Finn counters, squaring up against Hux’s mounting aggression.

A very tense, awkward silence ensues.

Ben, who didn’t care much for the previous topic of conversation anyway, is the one who breaks it. “So,” he says, flicking a finger between Finn and Rey. “How do you two know each other?”

Rey notes the thinly-veiled curiosity in the nature of his question. “Met at a bus stop.”

“That’s it?” he presses skeptically.

“She was fighting some guy,” Finn reveals pointedly, mistakenly believing that the fact would be deterring to their audience.

Instead, the intrigue on Snoke’s expression deepens.

Ben chokes out a laugh into his drink, his eyes sparkling with the humour of an inside joke. “Still getting into fights, I see?”

“He was trying to steal my bag,” Rey retorts defensively.

“Mmm. Such spunk,” Snoke purrs.

The comment sends a shudder down Rey’s spine. It’s much too creepy, coming from someone like him.

“Are you studying law? Have you given any consideration into where you’ll be applying for your clerkship?” Snoke questions predatorily.

“No, unfortunately, Rey is a _politics_ student,” Ben speaks for her.

She bristles at the snobbiness in his tone, but restrains herself. Rey has always been able to recognise when he is baiting her, as he is wont to do, and she knows exactly when it’s worth rising to and when it isn’t.

“Nothing wrong with that,” Finn defends her indignantly.

“No, no. Of course not,” Ben murmurs with a provocatively cynical undertone.

“I urge you to reconsider your options, Rey,” Snoke tells her, cutting through the paltry bickering. “Your fiery spirit is quite compatible with my team at First Order. You could achieve great things with us.”

“Yeah, well, thanks, but I’ll have to pass,” Rey instantly declines. She decides that she’s had quite enough of mildly-hostile, underhanded conversation for the night. “And, if you don’t mind, gentlemen, I think we’d better be heading off. Midterms, assignments, or whatever excuse that would suffice for you.”

She urgently grabs both of her friends by the arms and spins them around for a rather unceremonious exit.

“Rey.”

She reflexively halts in her steps, twisting back around at the sound of _his_ voice, calling out _her_ name.

Ben shoots her a smile. “I’ll message you.”

She ignores the inadvertent blush creeping up her neck as she steadfastly scurries away.

* * *

The house she grew up in hasn’t been the same in years. Since Ben’s abrupt departure, the place has become infinitely quieter - a solemn, stagnant type of quiet that heavily permeates the empty space. No longer did Rey’s and Ben’s laughter, shouting, or bickering shake the walls of the house. Nightly dinners were somber and still, the clinks of Luke’s and Rey’s cutlery against their respective plates the only real sounds in the kitchen.

Sure, Luke had tried to salvage what was left of their family after Ben had so bloodily torn himself away from it - constantly forcing stilted conversation between them and attempting to recreate a fabricated sense of good humour that mimicked the “old days” - but Rey could tell that Luke, as well as their family, would never be the same again. His eyes lost their optimistic twinkle, his ever-hopeful gaze having dulled to a blank, listless stare. Though he never said it, Rey knows that he blames himself for driving Ben away. She has always suspected that, had it not been for her, Luke would have fallen off the grid very soon after Ben had left.

Standing now in front of her old, favourite diner, too chagrined to face the sad, hollow structure that was once her home, Rey wonders how much more quiet and solemn both the house and Luke have become since she’d left, herself.

She spots him sauntering down the street - slow, bearded, and scruffy - and her heart painfully aches for the closest man to a father she’s ever had.

Luke Skywalker - once a bold, enthusiastic, and renowned professional of his own field, now just a lonely, old hermit, haunted by his own remorse.

“Luke,” Rey greets with earnest compassion. She squeezes him tightly in a fierce hug. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you too, Rey,” he murmurs back monotonously as he returns her embrace. “Let’s go inside.”

They settle into a comfortable booth, right in the middle of the diner. Rey grasps Luke by the hands across the table and supplies him with a kind smile, genuinely pleased to see him.

“So, how is college?” Luke inquires conversationally, forcing a light smile in return. “I do hope you’ve been staying out of fights.”

There it is again, the laborious attempt to portray a much more normal state of mind than what is actually being experienced.

“Actually...” Rey mutters tellingly.

Luke’s eyebrows shoot up in mild surprise. “Actually?”

“I did get into one fight about a month ago,” she admits, before quickly adding, “but it was with a thief who was trying to steal my bag!”

A flash of exasperation flits across Luke’s expression. “Rey, that is serious. You could have been gravely hurt.”

“I know. I’m sorry. My flight or fight instincts kicked in, and my body chose fight.”

“Isn’t that a surprise?”

She smirks at him cheekily, savouring in the old, shared joke. “But a funny thing kind of...came out of it,” she continues. There’s a very clear path to the outcome of this conversation already paved in her mind. She feels almost guilty for wanting to bring him back up again to Luke, who would only spiral into another pit of self-loathing at the very mention of him, but she can’t shake the thought that, perhaps, Ben’s reappearance in their lives could begin to make things right.

“Oh?” Luke presses, the wariness already apparent on his features.

“I met a guy named Finn,” she tells him.

“Oh!” he exclaims, his mind already reaching a premature conclusion. “You met a boy. That’s great, Rey.”

“What? N-No!” Rey stammers abashedly, her cheeks flushing pink. “I don’t mean that. I just met him. He saw me fighting that thief and tried to help, but, well...I handled it myself. Anyway, he’s just a friend, now. And it turned out that when he met me that day, he’d just come from quitting a job...” She eyes him cautiously. “...at First Order.”

She watches him visibly blanch. Panic strikes her in the chest as she frets that she is unintentionally sending him into another shame spiral.

“I know everything, Luke,” she goes on, before he can overreact. “I know where Ben went. I know he’s in Canto Bight, working for First Order. Finn and I and a few friends ran into him outside the First Order office, while we were...um...protesting.”

Luke leans back into his seat with a thump, gazing blankly down at their conjoined hands.

“I don’t blame you,” Rey hastily assures him. “I don’t blame you for anything, Luke. I never did. And I don’t blame you for not telling me what happened to him. It’s not like I ever wanted to know, anyway. But I just wanted to come here today and tell you this so that you know. I found Ben. I know you’ve always known where he is, but I didn’t, and I found him. Somehow, I found him. And I don’t know... I feel like, maybe... I don’t know.” She trails off with a resigned sigh, helpless to her own whirlwind of indiscernible emotions.

Luke is silent for a pronounced moment - just long enough for Rey to panic and consider continuing her babbling. “How is he?” he questions in a croak.

She opens her mouth dumbly.

“How is my nephew?” Luke asks again.

Rey hesitates for a while, deliberating on the possibility of lying, but ultimately heaves another sigh as she opts for transparency. “He’s changed,” she says sadly.

“Of course,” Luke whispers.

“Wealth and success have made him ugly. He’s materialistic, he’s snobby, and he just carries himself like he’s got a stick constantly up his ass,” she rants spitefully. Her demeanour softens. “But I still see remnants of Ben Solo in there, somewhere amongst all the Kylo Ren.”

For once, she allows herself to fully bathe in her wistfulness for her old friend, conceding that, yes, she has missed him dearly all along.

“We’ve been trying to run from this for too long, haven’t we?” Luke chuckles humourlessly. “What must he think of us now?”

“Well, he won’t leave _me_ alone,” Rey scoffs with an eye roll.

Luke’s eyes dart up to hers. “What?”

“He won’t leave me alone,” she says again, pulling out her phone. “After we ran into him, he worked out that I’m a student at CBU and he tracked me down on social media. Look at all these notifications. They’re all from him. I try not to reply, but they’re all just so goddamned provocative-”

“He’s reaching out to you?” Luke breathes in amazement. “Even after all that? After all those years that you coldly shut him out?”

“Yeah,” Rey replies, utterly oblivious to the manic energy currently radiating from Luke as she scrolls through her conversation history with Ben. “He asked me to dinner tonight.”

“No!” Luke blurts out, startling her.

“W-What?” she stutters in bewilderment to his reaction.

“No,” he repeats emphatically. “Rey, you can’t. I won’t let you near him. No.”

A rebellious heat flares in her chest. “What do you mean, you won’t _let_ me?”

“Rey,” Luke groans. He removes his hands from hers and rakes them through his greying hair. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that you can bring him back, that you can change him, but I’m telling you now, it’s not going to go the way you think.”

“Why not?”

“Because I spent so many years trying to steer him back in the right direction, but the more I did it, the more it drove him away,” he explains, his voice breaking with guilt. “The more pressure you apply to that boy, the more he will slip through your fingers.”

“Who said anything about applying pressure?” she returns. “I haven’t done shit, and already he’s putty in my hands.”

“But he is no closer to being who he used to be,” Luke points out grimly. “He’ll never be.”

“How can you have no faith in him anymore? Your own nephew.”

He visibly flinches at her words, downturning his eyes in shame.

“I’m sorry,” Rey amends regretfully. “I just...”

“I don’t want him to try and rope you into his world,” Luke confesses, meeting her eyes with sincerity. “It’s a dark world. I know it is. I know Snoke; he’s a very vindictive man.”

“I can tell.”

“I don’t want you to see him,” he tells her. “I just know he’s going to try and take you. And even he doesn’t know how dangerous Snoke can be.”

She chews on her lip, glancing down at her open phone screen - at Ben’s unanswered dinner invitation. She closes it and looks back up at Luke, her mind already made.

“Okay,” she lies, “I won’t see him.”

* * *

“Jesus, aren’t you cold?”

Ben hastily closes the distance between them when he spots Rey rounding the corner, and then proceeds to swaddle her in his pea coat.

She bristles at the admonishment. “Jeez, get off my back, _Dad_ ,” she mocks him, shrugging herself free of his coat’s wooly prison. “I’m fine. It’s not even that cold out.”

He holds out a hand to the air in demonstration. “It’s literally snowing,” he deadpans.

“Ben, it’s fine! I’ve got these gloves, and a fuckin’ scarf and shit...” She turns away from him irritatedly when he continues to furrow his eyebrows at her, before gruffly striding ahead towards the restaurant. “When did you become so uptight?”

He trudges after her, his feet dragging against the snow under his heavy gait. “I’m not uptight,” he mumbles defensively.

“You let me jump into a freezing-cold river once in just my underwear,” she reminds him.

“Again, as I’ve told you and Luke many, many times, I was off taking a piss in the woods when you decided to do that.”

He courteously holds the door open for her when they reach the restaurant, but Rey pointedly raises a hand to it as she passes through, as if to indicate that she isn’t falling for his gentlemanly charade.

“Table for two?” the hostess greets them.

“I’ve made a booking, actually,” Ben mentions. “Kylo Ren?”

Rey inwardly groans at the name.

“Yes, I see you here. Come with me, please.”

“Kylo Ren,” Rey scoffs as they follow the hostess to their table.

He dutifully ignores her.

A waiter is already standing at their table in anticipation of their arrival. He pulls out a chair for Rey and gestures to it almost showily.

“Sparkling or still?” he asks them as they take their seats.

“Tap,” Rey answers.

“Sparkling,” Ben says simultaneously.

They look at each other.

“Uh... Still is fine,” Ben finally concedes, a crease in his brow.

The waiter smiles politely, nods, and then glides elegantly away.

“Sparkling? You douchebag,” Rey scorns when he is out of earshot. “What the hell is this place, Ben? You’ve taken me to some weird, fancy, pretentious-as-fuck fine-dining joint. What happened to you?”

He leans back in his chair, bouncing his eyebrows at her sleazily. “I have money now,” he responds simply, pompously.

“Pffft.”

“And don’t worry. It’s nice here. You’re just experiencing a bit of a culture shock because you’ve never stepped foot inside anywhere fancier than a McDonald’s.”

She narrows her eyes at him indignantly, rising to his bait. “I enjoy the simpler things in life. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer my asshole unbleached.”

A hint of a smirk ghosts across his lips at her snarky retort. “Someone’s getting riled up,” he teases provocatively. “Careful, if you’re too rude to me tonight, you’re gonna have to spend the last of your savings on this dinner.”

She’s already up on her feet by the end of that sentence, having predicted where he was going with it long before he uttered the last word. “Then I won’t have this dinner with you, _asshole_ ,” she spits lividly, her clenched jaw popping with the vitriol.

His hand flies out to catch her by the wrist before she can leave. “Wait,” he sighs. “Rey.”

She stops, glaring back at him from over her shoulder. “What?” she snaps.

He stares at her glumly for a pronounced, dramatic pause. “Your fly’s open.”

She barks out a laugh and smacks his hand away, the anger and tension between them evaporating with that one, juvenile gag.


	4. Take me back when our world was one block wide

Ben absorbs the scene in front of him with mild dismay. “Please explain.”

Rey pops her head out from behind a dilapidated car, beaming at him with glee. “This is my turf.”

It was sometime after dinner that Ben shot her a, “Wyd?”, and Rey replied with a, “Just about to hit the junkyard. Wanna come?”

One hour later and he arrived at Canto Bight Salvage Yard to find her trawling through the wasteland, seriously regretting not asking any questions before he followed the girl here.

A manic grin unfurled across her face when she spotted him apprehensively manoeuvring himself through the mounds of junk. Something thrilling fluttered in the pit of her stomach at the sight of him slowly approaching her in the distance. Maybe it was that he looked so much more familiar to her tonight, messily dressed in simple plaid with a wild mop of tousled, untamed hair that stuck up at every angle.

“You just forage through trash in your spare time?” he observes, still quite consternated at the sight of Rey - _his_ Rey - scavenging for trash.

She shoots him an indignant scowl. “You can find a lot of cool shit down here, Ben. You just gotta know how to look.” She glances around at her surroundings with delighted awe. “People don’t appreciate their trash these days. You have to learn how to find value in the most unassuming things. You taught me that.”

He raises his eyebrows in incredulity. “I did not teach you to become a scavenging sewer rat,” he denies insistently. “What do you even find around here?”

“All sorts of stuff!” she exclaims, thoroughly unfazed by his cynicism. “I like the old cars the most. So many good parts that they miss. You can actually get some pretty decent sales off of them.”

He shakes his head in disbelief as he watches her tinker around inside the hood of the car. “But... Why?”

She shrugs, as if a proper explanation is only optional.

“Why, Rey?” he presses. “Are you that short on money?”

“No!” she laughs lightheartedly. “I just like it. I like scavenging.”

“You are just...” he trails off, unable to articulate the myriad of emotions she’s currently eliciting in him. “I mean, God, I always knew you were weird, but I didn’t know you were _this_ weird.”

“You’re weird too, you know,” she mentions, pausing her work and pointing the spanner in her hand at him. “The weird ones grow up to be the coolest adults. Your words.”

“Yeah, but you grow out of your weirdness eventually,” he argues. “You’re still just a weird kid.”

“I’m not a kid,” she disputes, before resuming her work on the car.

He can only summon a chuckle, and peers at her fondly as she sticks out her tongue in concentration. “No, I guess not,” he concedes, leaning back against the side of the car.

“Ah, this thing’s empty,” she groans disappointedly. She taps her spanner dismissively on the hollow shell of the ramshackle car. “That sucks. Let’s head up to the top of the pile. That’s where all the new stuff is.”

“Th...? The top of the junk pile?” Ben clarifies disbelievingly. “You want to climb...to the top...of the pile of garbage?”

She nods emphatically.

He snorts. “Alright. Fine. Have fun.”

“No, no! You’re coming with me!”

“Absolutely not.”

“Come on!” she whinges, taking him by the hand. The action is so natural, so instinctual to her - a consequence of years of childhood spent dragging him through the woods, to another arcade across the street, or towards his car for a trip to the ice cream parlour.

At her touch, his resolve instantly ebbs, and he lumbers after her, albeit reluctantly and spouting protestations at her along the way.

She stops them at the base of the largest junk pile. “Give me a boost,” she orders him intrepidly, already climbing on him before he can even voice his permission.

He sighs resignedly and hoists her by the waist onto the first discernible ledge of garbage.

She twists around and reaches out an expectant hand.

He shakes his head.

“Ben,” she wails, “come on. You used to be cool. Ten years ago, you would’ve loved doing this stuff with me!”

“Ten years ago, I was a broke moron,” he mutters bitterly.

A deep frown settles itself between her eyebrows. “I never thought you were a broke moron.”

“That’s because-” he cuts himself short, thinking the better of it.

“What?” she urges.

“Nothing,” he mumbles enigmatically.

She frowns again, vexed by his crypticness, and twists back around. “Fine,” she snaps, clambering further up the pile herself.

At the apex, she straightens, listening out for any sound resembling him possibly surrendering and climbing up after her. When she hears nothing but silence, she huffs and stomps the other way.

Rey is such a veteran scavenger now, that her process chiefly consists of kicking the piles of junk around with her feet and merely scanning for valuables through skilled eyes. She uses the torch function of her phone to assist in her hunt, expertly sweeping it across the discarded items at her feet in rapid bursts of movement.

“Oh my God,” she breathes, when her eye catches the undeniable shape of an iPhone, just lying there amongst the rubble. “No fucking way,” she whispers, greedily bending over to snatch it up. “No fucking- _Ahhhhh_!”

She shrieks bloody murder when a huge, hulking shadow leaps out at her and ensnares her from her side. Through her deafening squeals, she is madly smacking and punching her captor, flailing wildly against him.

Ben is cackling mischievously into her ear, his grip on the kicking and screaming girl in his arms unyielding.

“You ass! You ass, you ass, you ass!” she yells furiously. “Let go!”

He loosens his hold - enough for her to wrench herself free - and plucks the iPhone up from the ground. “So that’s where I dropped it!” he chirps, sliding it back into his pocket.

She shoves him hard, fuming. “I hate you so much.” But the corners of her mouth tug her lips into an inevitable smile, and she ducks her head away, concealing her mutual amusement.

He follows her movement, persistently thrusting his face into hers.

“Leave me alone!” she squeals, and she cringes internally at her own shrill voice, having never thought that it could sound so obnoxiously girly.

Their rowdy laughter resonates throughout the yard, bleeding into the night sky.

Rey giggles hysterically as Ben chases her through hills of garbage. She procures various objects by her feet along the way, playfully tossing them over her shoulder at him in a vain attempt to hinder his pursuit.

Suddenly, they are children again, sprinting through the forests of Endor, running from the security guard who caught them stealing candy from the grocery store, speeding down the countryside highway in Han’s old car with the top down.

Rey nimbly dodges Ben’s pounce and howls with laughter as the momentum from his lurch propels him too far forwards and straight into the junk pile.

When he grimaces with repulsion and makes to scramble back onto his feet, she dives onto him, her weight prohibiting his escape.

“No! No!” he whines, squirming. “This is so disgusting!”

“Shhhh,” she hushes him soothingly. “We are trash people now.”

“I am not a trash person!”

“Yes, you are. Just let it happen.”

He successfully wrestles her off of him and pushes himself up from the filthy ground, shaking out his hands. “Gross.” His eyes drift from his open palms to the girl in front of him - the girl sniggering euphorically at him amongst a heap of trash. “You grew up...really weird,” he tells her. But the look in his eyes is much too soft, and his tone much too affectionate, for the sentiment to be even remotely insulting.

She hugs her knees to her chest giddily. “Thanks.”

“Tsss,” he chuckles, his shoulders twitching with the action, before shaking his head for the umpteenth time that night and stalking away.

“Hey! Where are you going?” she demands petulantly, clambering onto her feet.

“I think I’ve filled my quota for interacting with weird chicks today,” he calls over his shoulder.

She smirks at the back of his head. “Coward.”

* * *

Ben finds himself glancing impatiently at his watch very frequently throughout the day in eager anticipation of the appropriate hour to leave work.

When said hour finally rolls around, he briskly slams his laptop shut, snatches his coat from over his seat, hastily abandons his desk, and strides restlessly towards the elevators.

But he is impeded by the call of his name. “Ren.”

He freezes mid-step, slowly inclining his head in the direction of Snoke’s office.

The frail, yet intimidating old man is leaning expectantly against the wall outside his office door, as if he has been knowingly awaiting Ben’s premature departure.

Ben clears his throat uneasily and obediently traipses up to him. “Yeah?”

“You’re leaving rather early today,” Snoke observes. Though the remark is harmless out of context, there’s an inkling of an accusation in his tone.

“Yeah. Just thought I’d head off. Not much left to do,” Ben replies tersely.

”Hmmm,” Snoke hums thoughtfully. “I hope you’re not flitting off to go see that surly college student. What was her name? Rey?”

Ben doesn’t know why, but his knee-jerk reaction is to lie. “No. No, I thought I’d go home and prep for the meeting tomorrow. You know I read better at home.”

Snoke sneers. “I certainly hope that’s the truth,” he murmurs, tactfully disguising his threat as a joke. “I’d hate to see you inadvertently lured back into the lowly Skywalker lifestyle, what with this inopportune blast from the past.”

“N-No,” Ben quickly denies. “Of course not.”

“I fear that your sentiment for the girl may weaken your resolve,” Snoke muses casually. “We wouldn’t want that at such a pivotal time in your career, now, would we?”

“I assure you, there’s nothing going on like that,” Ben vows insistently.

“You’ve been seeing her a lot over the past month, haven’t you?” Snoke mentions. “I’ve noticed the shift in your behaviour, your focus.”

“I...”

“Now, obviously, it is none of my business what my employees choose to do with their personal lives. But, given the significance of the decision I’ve yet to make on your progression, I must continue to take your merits into consideration.”

Ben clenches his jaw, the initial flames of resentment flickering in the pit of his stomach.

“I need to see you really apply yourself, Ren,” Snoke tells him. “Especially over the next few months. Your performance in tomorrow’s meeting, and the following days you’ll need to spend raking through this case, will be heavily assessed. I can’t have you losing focus.” He absentmindedly surveys his own nails. “Now, if the girl had remotely conveyed any admiration, or even respect, for First Order, I would have no qualms with the amount of time you spend around her. But it appears as though she is adamant in her contempt for us, and unfortunately, that is what makes her apparent influence over you concerning to me.”

“What if I got her to come around?” Ben bargains. The desperation in his query is too potent to sustain his facade. “Then we’d have no problem, right? What if I convinced her to join us?”

Snoke shrugs, feigning nonchalance at the idea. “It would certainly be less concerning, yes.”

Ben nods, his expression steeling with resolve.

Snoke provides him with a smarmy grin, before slinking back into his office and disappearing from view. “Have a good evening,” he drawls in dismissal.

* * *

“Over here, dipshit!”

Ben ducks his head abashedly as he sidles through the crowded movie theatre towards Rey, who’d just attracted the curious attention of anyone within a ten-foot radius with her obscene outcry.

“Why do you have to be so embarrassing in public?” he complains in a disgruntled mumble when he reaches her.

“Why do you have to be such an uptight square?” she retaliates.

“Why do you have to have toothpaste on your shirt?” he quips, pointing at her collar.

She makes the rookie mistake of bemusedly peering down at herself.

His finger flies up into her face.

She releases an irritated snort and slaps his hand away, perpetually a combination of amused and annoyed at him.

“Wanna get popcorn?” he proposes, nodding at the snack bar.

“Popcorn?” she echoes incredulously. “Pay ten whole dollars for that shit? No thank you.” She unzips her varsity jacket to reveal a hefty assortment of chips and candy stashed inside.

Ben reaches a hand into one of the opened chip packets and briskly tosses a chip into his mouth. “Ugh,” he grumbles through a grimace, “it’s stale.”

“Yeah, well, I found that one about three weeks ago in the library. A perfectly good packet of chips, just left open right there on the table-”

He interrupts her story with a long, drawn-out, horrified splutter.

“Oi!” she cries indignantly when she is inevitably caught in the trajectory.

“What the fuck?” he demands, ignoring the looks of dismay being cast in their direction. “Why? Why would you do that?”

“What? It’s honey soy chicken!” she mentions, as if that is a solid enough justification. “You think I’m just gonna pass up a perfectly good bag of honey soy chicken chips?”

“You’re such a little sewer rat,” he groans judgmentally. But, as with every insult that he readily hurls at her, his words are laced with begrudging endearment, and his gaze remains warm and fond, despite how abhorred or deprecatory he tries to convey himself as. “I’m getting popcorn. Throw all of your shit in the trash.”

She pouts at him but complies, sulkily chucking the numerous bags of expired snacks into a nearby bin.

It’s a Monday night, and Ben has an early meeting tomorrow, but it’s the only night that Rey has free this week, and the only night that the oddball film she‘s apparently been “dying” to see is playing in the city.

“So what is this movie about again?” Ben inquires as they settle into their seats, already munching on handfuls of popcorn.

“It’s a Chinese martial arts children’s cartoon set in Hitler’s Germany,” she answers nonchalantly. “It’s been coined the worst movie of the twenty-first century. But apparently the sex scenes are surprisingly good.”

He can only blink at her wordlessly in baffled response.

“You wanna hit the diner after this?” she suggests. A metaphorical train of déjà vu slams into her as the words slide effortlessly out of her mouth. Sometimes, when Rey is with Ben and she closes her eyes, she can pretend that she’s twelve again.

“Nah, I have work early,” he declines.

“Lame,” she scoffs, snatching the box of popcorn from his lap.

“You know what’s lame?” he counters. “Unemployment. Eighty-seven percent of college graduates leave university without a job-”

“I’m, like, eighty-seven percent sure that number is made up.”

“-and you could very well be one of them. Do you want that, Rey? Do you want to be broke and jobless at twenty-two?” he powers on, ignoring her interjection.

She can’t help but laugh at the gimmicky, salesman-esque cadence he‘s adopted in his feeble pitch.

“Luckily for you, we at First Order are accepting applications for clerkships starting this Wednesday.”

“Stop it.”

“And even more luckily, I’m more than willing to put in a good word for you with HR, fast-tracking you right past the initial shortlisting process. How does that sound?”

“Terrible,” she shuts him down, narrowing her eyes at him sternly. “I don’t want to become a lawyer, Ben. I told you. And even if I did, First Order is the last place I’d be joining.”

“Why? Because your friends told you that what we do is bad? Or because you’ve done your research and formulated an independent opinion of your own?” he questions.

She rolls her eyes at him. “Let it go. I’m tired of talking about this. I told you what I wanna do when I graduate, and that’s gonna be the end of it.”

“Actually, no, it’s not gonna be the end of it,” he argues, shifting around in his seat to face her, “because inevitably you’re gonna realise that you’ve been brainwashed your entire life to fit into a specific mould, and then you’re gonna combust in an existential blast of delirium-”

She releases an extremely long, loud, exasperated groan. “Shut up!” she shouts into the air, her head tilted back in aggravation. “Get off my back, alright? I know what I’m doing!”

“You literally don’t, and here’s why-”

“You better stop talking right now, before I shove my shoe into your mouth-”

“You’re not _listening_ to me, bitch-”

“Excuse me!” a shrill, livid voice hisses from behind them.

They both twist around to face a very angry, old woman glaring at them from two rows back.

“Can you please keep your voices down?” she demands, holding a stiff finger to her lips.

Ben and Rey glance at each other.

“Uh, how about you mind your own business, lady?” Rey retorts.

“Yeah, the movie hasn’t even started yet,” Ben adds.

“Nosy-ass bitch, getting all up in our faces-”

“Why don’t you just leave if you don’t like it?”

“Take a hike, lady!”

“Who shouts at strangers in the middle of a movie theatre?”

“That’s just rude.”

The woman gapes back at them in shock.

As does the rest of the theatre.

About ten minutes later, they’re being ushered out of the venue by a lanky, fifteen-year-old theatre attendant, swearing and protesting continuously along the way.

“Well,” Rey sighs after the boy hastily retreats into the building, “that’s about the fiftieth time I’ve gotten kicked out of a movie theatre with you.”

“Might as well do what we normally do and hit the diner,” Ben says with a casual shrug.

She grins at him, not as bummed about missing the movie as she thought she’d be. “I’m down,” she agrees, looping her arm through his.

He smiles back and accepts her arm, subconsciously enjoying the new physical contact. But his contented expression quickly melts into one of panic when he glimpses an undeniable crop of red hair rounding the corner down the street. Acting purely out of instinct, he yanks his arm back from Rey and shoves her into a nearby alleyway, effectively concealing her from Armitage Hux’s line of sight.

“What the f-!” is all she manages to screech out before landing heavily against a dumpster.

“Ah! Ren,” Hux greets him sycophantically when he spots him. Once again, he seizes the opportunity to torment his colleague. “I see you’re making the most of your Monday night. Clearly, you’re preparing well for tomorrow’s presentation.”

Ben glowers at the smug smirk on his nemesis’ lips, petulantly thrusting his hands into his coat pockets. “Get lost, Hux. Don’t you have kitty litter to scoop up?”

But Hux does not leave nearly as soon enough as he would have wanted, and inevitably, his hotheaded, foolhardy plan fails.

“Ben, what the fuck?” Rey growls furiously as she stomps out from behind the alleyway. “Why the fuck did you push me, asshole?”

Hux’s oily gaze slides over to the girl beside Ben, and his eyes light up with recognition. “Ah,” he chuckles, his smugness increasing tenfold, “I see.”

“Fuck off, Hux,” Ben grumbles, before gripping Rey by the arm and leading her away.

She allows him to drag her only to the end of the street before irately wrenching herself from his grasp. “What the hell was that?”

“That prick,” Ben hisses resentfully, glaring back towards the movie theatre. “He’s gonna use this against me somehow. I just fucking know it.”

“So you pushed me into a dumpster?” she explodes, quivering with rage.

He sighs wearily. “Alright. That was a bit of a dick move-”

“What are you, ashamed of me?” she challenges. Hot tears already begin to sting at her eyes.

“What? No-”

“Ashamed of your little childhood street rat?”

“What the fuck?” he splutters. “Rey, no!”

“So what if he sees you with me? What’s he gonna do, huh? What’s so bad about it?” She struggles with all of her might to remain composed, but the quake in her voice is unmistakeable.

“It’s complicated, alright?”

“And I’m too young to understand, yeah?” she demands. “Like always, I’m too young. You still think I’m just a kid and I always need to be kept out of the loop, like I don’t deserve an explanation for anything. Just like when you fucking left.”

He flinches at her acidic words, and his gaze drops to his own feet in chagrin.

She just shakes her head at him. “Fuck you,” she mutters bitterly.

And with that, she shoves her hands into her jacket pockets and storms off, leaving him to stare after her gravely on the busy sidewalk.

* * *

“I theorise that...Mustard...did it in the...library...with a...”

Rey chuckles at the way Finn scrunches up his face in rumination.

“Baseball bat,” he finishes, a spark of hopefulness flashing across his eyes.

Rey and Rose exchange discreet glances across the table, before both shaking their heads.

“Argh!” Finn groans. He squints intently down at the scrap piece of paper in his hand. “I don’t get it! One of you has to have one of those cards!”

“Try again, cupcake,” Rey teases, leaning back into her beanbag.

It’s a Friday night, and they’ve all just cleared out another wave of assignments and midterms. Though the most natural instinct to the average college student would be to go out for celebratory drinks, these three friends unanimously agreed that a simple board game night sufficed.

Rose quirks her head at Rey curiously as she rolls the dice. “Seen Ben lately?”

“His name is Kylo Ren,” Finn corrects her pointedly.

Rey cryptically shrugs and adopts her best poker face. “Not really,” she half-lies.

It’s a half-lie because she genuinely hasn’t seen him since their little spat outside the movie theatre, but she hasn’t exactly been honest with her friends about how much the two had been hanging out prior to that. Something tells her that Rose, at least, has a bit of a hunch. After all, Rey has never been an early riser, but lately she’s been sneaking off at seven in the morning for pre-work coffee catchups with Ben.

“Good,” Finn states, readily accepting her fib. “He’s bad news, anyway.”

Almost on cue, Rey’s phone buzzes in her pocket and she eagerly whips it out, desperate to discover who it is.

“Free tomorrow?” Ben inquires.

She gnaws on her lip anxiously, her heart pounding intensely in her chest. She’s been waiting for him to message her all week, and her wish finally being fulfilled floods her with adrenaline.

“Rey?” Rose speaks up, breaking her out of her trance.

“Hm?” Rey responds innocently.

“It’s your turn.”

“Right,” she breathes, her thumbs hovering hesitantly over her phone screen. Quickly, she taps out, “Takodana Diner. 7,” before rolling the dice.


	5. They never believed we’d really fall in love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to whoever picks up on the line I straight up ripped off from Clueless because I love it so much.

She finds him leaning against the wall outside the diner, idly scrolling through something on his phone with his suit jacket slung lazily over his shoulder.

It’s as if he senses her approaching, because she’s still a fair distance down the sidewalk when he suddenly raises his head, an involuntary grin spreading across his face.

She can’t help but return it tenfold, beaming back at him as she quickens her pace. She’s getting used to seeing him in a suit, fresh from a loaded day at work, with his hair tousled and shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

When she finally reaches him, they regard each other wordlessly for a moment, their expressions conveying all there is that needs to be said.

_I’m so happy to see you._

But the silence must be broken at some point, and Ben takes it upon himself to do the honours in an awkwardly fumble for something to say. “You look like Pippy Longstocking,” he teases, flicking a finger at one of her pigtails.

She scrunches her nose at him. “You look like Forrest Gump,” she quips. “Let’s go inside.”

They shuffle in through the door. The melodic tinkle of an overhead bell announces their arrival.

Rey tuts in annoyance as Ben playfully kicks at the backs of her heels while she walks. “Stop it,” she snaps in aggravation. “I’ll shave your head in your sleep if you don’t stop that right now.”

He instantly yields, but flashes her a mischievous smirk, which is almost just as vexing.

They slide into a corner booth and order a sundae to share - an old tradition, even in the chilliest of weathers.

“I forgot how annoying you were,” Rey mutters irritatedly through mouthfuls of ice-cream.

Ben chuckles, dropping his eyes to the table and scratching his ear. The action is somewhat bashful, she realises, and something buried deep inside of her finds it endearing.

“I’ve been really busy at work,” he mentions dryly, fixing dark, earnest eyes on her. “That’s why...you know...” He hesitates. “That’s why I’ve been kind of AWOL for the past week.”

She blinks in rapid succession, taken aback by his sudden shift in tone, and curtly shakes her head. “I didn’t even notice,” she bluffs.

His expression softens with amusement, the impish smirk quickly back on his face. “Really?”

“Yeah,” she insists huffily, and averts her gaze. “I’ve been busy too, you know.”

He tilts his head to the side condescendingly. With what? Homework?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” she sniffs proudly.

He nods, but allows the topic to taper off, sobering into a brief pause of silence. “I’m gearing up for a promotion,” he blurts.

She freezes mid-spoon. “What position?” she inquires.

“I’m trying to make partner,” he reveals with a cocky smile.

Her eyebrows shoot up in reaction. “Partner? What are you, like, forty?” she blurts.

He shakes his head, still smug. “I’ll be the youngest partner in First Order history. The first one before thirty.”

“What’d you do, suck Old Man Snoke’s shrivelled balls?” she questions crudely.

“Close,” he quips. “I worked hard and paid my dues.”

“That’s even gayer.”

He snorts at her tasteless remark. “Come on. Don’t be jealous. I’m telling you this because I want you to share in my accomplishments.”

“I am not jealous,” she denies indignantly. “I’d gladly surrender the honour of kissing Snoke’s butthole to you any day.”

“He’s been promising me this position for a long time,” Ben continues, pointedly ignoring Rey’s vulgarity. “And this is only the beginning. He told me that once he completely devotes himself to public service and moves to the Capital, he’s going to pass on the company to me. Me, Rey,” he tells her with fervour. “Within just a few years, I could be in charge of First Order.”

Rey’s frowning at him by this point, a flutter of disquiet spurring in her chest. “He trusts you that much?”

“Yeah,” he breathes, beaming. “Out of everyone, Snoke trusts me the most to do right by the firm.”

“Then what does that say about you?” she spits angrily, when she is unable to repress the sickened rage igniting in the pit of her stomach.

His elated smile falls. “What?”

“That Snoke, that awful, wretched, piece of _shit_ of a walking testicle, is entrusting _you_ with his horrid, evil, heartless firm - one which exclusively defends rapists, and pedophiles, and-”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he cuts her off in a growl.

“Don’t I?” she challenges. “Then tell me what part of what I just said is wrong.”

He sputters. “There’s more to law than just ethics, alright?”

“What does that say about you?” she reiterates, ignoring him. “That you’re the perfect person to fill _that_ cocksucker’s shoes?”

“If it really bothers you that much,” he speaks up, “I can change things.”

She scoffs. “Change what?”

“The way we do things,” he replies. “I’ll be running the place. I can change whatever I want.”

“And what is the Board gonna say to a complete restructure of their business model?”

“They can go fuck themselves,” he returns dismissively. “I need you to be on board with this, Rey.”

“Why?”

“Because...I want you to be involved,” he confesses. “I want you with me at First Order. Trust me, it’s a much better option for you than just becoming a second Leia Organa. Together, we can do so much.”

“I’m not even a fucking law student!”

“Then take law! I’ll wait!”

“I hate law!” she hisses furiously. “What’s the matter with you? You accuse your family of smothering and brainwashing us, but that’s exactly what you’re doing to me right now!”

He blinks at her tensely.

Rey scoffs out a humourless chuckle. “This is bullshit,” she mutters. “I’m not getting sucked up into your twisted cause.”

“I don’t give a fuck about the cause,” he says vehemently. “I don’t give a fuck about any of it anymore. I just want you there with me.”

She falters at his intensity, which even he finds himself surprised by.

“I just...” he amends. “I just don’t want to see you fall into the same trap that I did when I was your age. I was just miserable.”

“I know what I’m doing,” she states assertively. “Luke, Leia, and Han did not force anything onto me. They wouldn’t dare after you left, believe me.”

He presses his lips into a thin, awkward line, sombrely fixing his eyes onto the sundae in front of him.

“I admire your mother,” Rey goes on. “I believe in what she does. I believe in her ideals. And I want to follow in her footsteps.”

The disappointment is prevalent on his face.

“And I think that the only reason why you’re so against her ideals is simply because you felt that she and Luke tried to force them on you. It’s not because you truly disagree with them.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, alright?” he says again.

“Then, again, tell me where I’m wrong!” she demands hotly, flinging her spoon onto the table.

She shakes her head at him when he says nothing.

“You think I’m still just a helpless, little girl, don’t you? The same one you had to rescue from schoolyard bullies?” she confronts him.

He regards her wordlessly, a trace of something akin to intrigue flickering across his expression.

“The day you left,” she begins, swallowing hard, “you said that you hoped one day I would understand why you did it.”

He nods.

“Well, I’m older now, and I do understand. But not in the way that you’d hoped,” she says. “You left because you felt trapped, and you wanted to know what it felt like to have just an ounce of freedom. But you never truly believed in those principles that you’d convinced yourself were your sole reason for leaving. If you did, then you’d be happy.”

“I am happy,” he insists feebly. “I am, alright? God, what’s wrong with you? Why can’t you just be secretly jealous of me like a normal person?”

“Did it ever occur to you that Snoke is just taking advantage of you? That he exploited your insecurities to snatch Luke Skywalker’s prodigal nephew right from under his nose?” she posits bluntly. “I mean, partner? Really? Ben, you’ve only been there six years! You’re twenty-nine! Who, in their right mind, would make you partner and promise you an entire company without an ulterior motive?”

Ben never looks up at her once, perhaps too chagrined to face her in the same way that she is forcing him to face possible truths. “You know what?” he finally says after a lengthy pause. “This sundae ain’t doin’ it for me. Wanna hit the bar?”

She opens, closes, and then reopens her mouth. “Which one?”

“The one that serves alcohol,” he mutters, briskly sliding out from the booth.

She watches his retreating back for a couple of beats, before hurriedly scooping the residual ice-cream into her mouth and chasing after him.

* * *

“Holy shit.”

Rey can’t help but gawk openly as she takes her first steps into Ben’s apartment.

It’s some hour close to midnight, the two are mildly inebriated, and Ben has insisted on showing Rey the “lavish lifestyle” she’d be missing out on should she refuse to join his side at First Order.

The place is massive - not only that, but Rey has never seen a living space with so many decorative indoor water features before. The gentle sound of trickling water is a constant hum in her ears.

Ben trails behind her smugly as she dashes from room to room, fighting a smile at the childish way she shamelessly goggles at everything in awe.

“Don’t you always feel like you gotta pee?” she asks, genuinely inquisitive.

He snorts. “You know what? A little.”

She wrinkles her nose at him and skips into another room, spinning in circles as she soaks it all in. “So this is what selling your soul and every shred of your own integrity gets you,” she remarks.

“This is what having a real job gets you,” he corrects her. “Check this out.” He snatches up a remote from one of his side tables and points it at an empty stretch of wall.

The wall shifts in geometric cubes to reveal a hidden stereo system, which emerges from seemingly out of nowhere. Light jazz begins to stream from the speakers, pleasant music drifting down upon their ears like a warm, fuzzy, audible blanket.

Rey shoots him a look. “Really?”

He grins and shrugs, setting the remote back down. “That was already there when I got here.”

She rolls her eyes as she twirls back around to examine some wall art.

He takes a sharp breath. “Thirsty?” he offers.

“Always,” she quips, her eyes still fixated on the painting in front of her.

When she hears him leave the room, she opportunistically tiptoes over to one of his shelves. There, she sneaks a discreet peek at a particular photo frame that had caught her eye, but which she was too bashful to openly examine in his presence.

She was right. It’s a photo of her.

She reaches out to delicately pick it up, staring down at the aged photograph inside. It’s a snap from their first road trip together - one of her most treasured memories - capturing a cheeky, six-year-old Rey hoisted over a teenaged Ben’s shoulders in front of a waterfall.

A smile creeps its way across her face, and her chest floods with warmth.

He kept it. After all these years.

A noise from the kitchen startles her and she almost drops the frame in her haste to set it back down. She saunters away from the shelf with her hands behind her back in what she hopes to be an inconspicuous manner, just as Ben re-enters the room with two glasses.

He hands one to her wordlessly, and the two gaze at each other in silence as they simultaneously take a sip.

“Whiskey,” she says in recognition. “How’d you know I like whiskey?”

“Because I raised you to be cool,” he returns wryly, giving her a wink.

A different kind of warmth fills her body at that.

“N-No,” she stammers, desperately ignoring the flustered heat rising to her cheeks. “You didn’t raise me. Luke did.”

“Really? So Luke picked you up from school every day and listened to you talk about your boy problems?”

She blinks at him incredulously. “Yes?” she splutters. “You hardly ever did any of that!”

He smirks at her roguishly and strolls away, taking another sip of his drink as he retreats.

“Where are you going?” she questions. Her feet naturally pull herself after him.

She doesn’t know if the heat in her face and chest are a result of the alcohol or something much more scandalous. But in her tipsy stupor, she can’t help but notice how much better he looks now, in a suit, than he ever did in baggy, black sweatshirts.

“I gotta show you the best part,” he replies, heading for a room she hasn’t explored yet.

“Of course,” she drawls, having already guessed his next exhibit. “Bedroom.”

The room is just as ridiculously, unnecessarily spacious as the rest of the apartment, with high ceilings and ostentatious interior decor. The centrepiece is a bed that is much too big for just one person to sleep in, adorned with lush, silk sheets and plush pillows.

She shakes her head at him. “That,” she says, pointing at the bed, “does not look comfortable.”

“What?” he barks in outrage. “Why not?”

“It looks like a cyborg sleeps on it.”

“No, come on,” he groans, slumping down onto the edge of the mattress and patting the spot beside him. “Try it. It’s the best quality silk.”

“It does look kinda cosy, you know, for a coffin,” she teases. But she acquiesces to his suggestion, sinking down into the spot beside him. She sticks out her bottom lip. “Not bad.”

“Right?”

They share a goofy smile, the frivolity of the conversation mutually amusing to them.

But when said conversation dies, all that remains is a tense, charged silence, in which their eyes have locked and their faces are suddenly rather close. It’s that same heat, that same electricity that Rey has been sensing between them all along, but far stronger now - more unambiguous, more concrete.

In this fleeting moment of quiet, Rey cursorily reviews the events of the past twenty-four hours through a new lens.  
How did she find herself here? She realises, suddenly, that the sequence of events that have led her to this very moment was entirely motivated by Ben himself. _He_ asked her out tonight. _He_ invited her back to his place, _he_ put on that strangely-arousing jazz music, and _he_ put this glass of bad-decision juice in her hand. Most of all, _he_ led her to his bedroom, _he_ convinced her to sit on his bed, and _he’s_ looking at her right now with those same burning, hungry eyes.

In her mildly-intoxicated haze, it all comes hurtling to Rey in a crystal-clear revelation.

He wants her. And she wants him, too.

She flashes him a devilish grin, precariously setting her glass of whiskey down on the floor by her feet. Then, she very boldly and deliberately leans in to kiss him.

But her move is left extremely unreciprocated.

Dismayed by her sudden action, but quick enough to react in time, Ben synchronously leans back and ducks his face out of reach.

More confused than anything, Rey perseveres in her advances, practically crawling onto his lap.

He releases an awkward grunt as he nimbly twists out of her grasp, hurriedly standing up from the bed and taking several staggering steps back.

She pouts at him sulkily, but wastes no time in pursuing him.

“Um...look!” Ben exclaims, desperately clawing at the nearest photo frame in deflection. “This is me with the old Prince of Naboo! Pretty unfortunate hairline, right?”

She merely smirks at him, and obstinately ignores his futile attempt at a diversion as she stalks nearer. With one, swift, agile motion, she throws herself against him, her lips lightly grazing against his chin in the process.

“Okay, Rey, stop!” he finally objects. He pushes himself away from her and bounds over to the other side of the room. “That’s enough. Whatever you’re trying to do, please, just stop.”

“Why?” she demands petulantly, too emboldened by the alcohol to care about how silly she sounds.

“Because...! I...” he stammers. “Because I don’t see you in that way.”

She scowls. “Bullshit! I see the way you look at me.”

“That’s...just...ridiculous,” he responds, rather unconvincingly. “You’re like a little sister to me. You always have been.”

“Oh yeah? Then why do you have a boner right now?”

“I don’t have a fucking boner!” he growls abashedly through gritted teeth. He bends over and conceals his crotch, despite himself.

“Come on,” she coos, gradually sauntering up to him. “Don’t be afraid. I feel it too.”

“Then you’re...sick,” he chokes out, avoiding her lustful gaze. “You’re a sick human being. That’s just demented.”

She bristles at that particular statement. “I’m sick?” she echoes incredulously. “ _I’m_ sick? Okay! You’re the one with a statue of a woman fucking a dog in your bedroom, but I’m sick!”

“That is _not_ what that is,” he denies insistently.

“ _I’m_ sick, he says!” she explodes, suddenly inundated with waves of anger as the reality of his rejection dawns upon her. “ _I’m_ demented! Well, you know what, Ben? Fuck you!”

He frowns, disturbed by her abrupt shift in behaviour. “Rey...”

“No, you know what? That’s fine! That’s completely fine!” She kicks over her whiskey glass as she irately storms out of the room.

He promptly follows her but maintains a sizeable distance, watching her with perturbed eyes.

“I thought we could both be real, honest adults about this, but I guess not!” she rants, heading for the front door. She flings it open and flounces out, swinging her handbag wildly in one hand. “Coward,” she spits at him, before slamming it shut in his face.

* * *

“So? What happened next?”

Rey can do nothing but stare blankly at the coffee mug gripped tightly in her traumatised hands in response.

Rose leans across the table expectantly, growing more and more suspicious with each passing second of silence. “Rey, what happened?” she repeats warily.

Rey glances up at her. “I did something bad.”

“Oh my God, you _slept_ with him?” Rose screeches.

“Shhh!” Rey hushes her frantically, eyes darting around the coffee shop in paranoia. “No!”

“Oh, thank God,” Rose breathes with relief.

“But I tried to.”

“ _What_?” Rose shrieks, garnering the immediate attention of anyone within a ten-foot radius.

“Shhh!” Rey shushes her again.

“You can’t just drop a bombshell on me like that and expect me to not react accordingly!” Rose shout-whispers hysterically. “You made a move on him? What the hell were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t,” Rey laments. “I was really drunk. I wasn’t thinking straight at all, and I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“You’re attracted to him!” Rose accuses.

“No!” Rey denies shrilly, the break in her voice betraying her facade. “That’s just...demented,” she says, reiterating Ben’s very words from the previous night.

“It is! Don’t you two have, like, a shit-ton of baggage?”

“Yes,” Rey moans, and drops her head into her hands. “It’s weird. I literally grew up with him and he’s ten years older than me. It’s sick and demented and I’m still trying to work out if it’s incestuous-”

“Wait,” Rose cuts her off. “What happened? He rejected you?”

Rey bites her lip sheepishly. “Yeah. He said that he doesn’t see me that way. Which is totally fair and probably healthy-”

“Ah,” Rose chuckles, leaning back smugly in her seat. “I see.”

“What?” Rey presses.

“He likes you too.”

“Wha...? Wh...? Why would you think that?” Rey stutters.

Rose rolls her eyes, as if Rey is missing a point that is glaringly obvious. “The reason why he didn’t respond to your advances is because he cares about you too much and doesn’t wanna mess it up. Don’t you see?”

Rey frowns.

“Rey, you’re probably the most important person in the world to him right now. And after all you two have been through together, not only now but throughout your childhood, there’s just way too much for him to lose by giving in to your advances.”

“That’s crazy,” Rey denies, failing to convince even herself. “No. He was right. The nature of our relationship has always been platonic and familial, and I was just drunk and horny and I would’ve banged anyone in that state.”

“Did you even have that much to drink?” Rose points out.

Rey hesitates. “Yes.”

“No, you didn’t.” Rose grins at her, satisfied.

“Shut up!” Rey snaps, a little too defensively. “You’re sick for even fathoming something so twisted.”

“Hey, you’re the one who wants to eff your brother.”

The waitress chooses that moment to arrive to collect their empty mugs.

They both determinedly ignore her judgmental side-eye as she takes their cups away.

* * *

It’s clear to everyone in the office, as soon as Ben comes barraging in that morning, that he is in another one of his moods. Consequently, his colleagues give him a wide berth, too circumspect to greet him or even glance in his general direction.

He hurls his bag onto his desk with a grumpy thud, the corners of his lips tugged downwards into a surly frown. He flings open his laptop haphazardly and impatiently drums his fingertips against the tabletop as he waits for his inbox to update.

His mood is further soured by the first email that pops up on the list.

Snoke.

It’s an empty email, with only a subject line that reads, “See me immediately.”

He sigh-groans and slams his laptop shut, before noisily rising from his seat and plodding down the hall to his boss’ office. He takes a few seconds to centre himself with a fatigued exhale before tentatively rapping his knuckles on the mahogany door.

“Yes,” Snoke answers blithely.

Ben allows himself into Snoke’s office, his body language dour and frigid. His hands are crammed rigidly into his pockets, his jaw is clenched, his eyes are downcast, and his demeanour is frosty.

It is clear to Snoke that his young apprentice has grown increasingly resentful towards him over the past few months. The fact only strengthens his resolve. “How are you this morning, Kylo?” he inquires diplomatically.

“Good. How are you?” Ben automatically returns.

“I’m well, thank you. A little concerned, but well.”

Ben can feel Snoke forcing him with his eyes to rise to his bait. “Concerned about what?” he relents stiffly.

“Well, I’ve been giving your upcoming progression a lot of thought,” Snoke muses, standing from his chair and slinking out from behind his desk. “Although we have discussed it exhaustively, it remains a rather onerous and weighty decision.”

Ben’s eyebrows gradually lower into a scowl.

“And due to recent...events,” Snoke mentions pointedly, “I have come to find myself rather conflicted on whether or not I need to...re-evaluate my options.”

“What are you talking about?” Ben demands gruffly. “I’ve done everything that you’ve asked of me, and you gave me your word. You told me I’d make partner this month. You’ve promised me for the past five years-”

“And, now, I see your commitment to our cause waning,” Snoke interjects icily. “Ever since that feisty, little thing re-entered the picture.”

Ben swallows down his wrath.

“Tasty, young treat, isn’t she?” Snoke mentions with a malicious smirk. “I do empathise with your intentions, Ren. You’ve been waiting in the wings, and now that she is of age, the bait is just too tempting to resist-”

“That is _not_ what is happening,” Ben growls vehemently.

“It isn’t?” Snoke challenges. “I can read between the lines. Ever since that little teenager clawed her way back into your life, you’ve been slipping further and further from your rightful path - showing up to work late and leaving early, questioning my judgment more frequently, losing sight of your goals-”

“I haven’t lost sight of anything,” Ben hisses fervently through his teeth. “I’ve kept my sights on that partner position for the past five years, ever since you proposed it to me. It’s all I’ve dedicated my entire life to.”

“I am simply concerned that you are slipping back into your...old ways,” Snoke drawls. “What with the return of someone from your past, you are now more susceptible to indulging in that kind of philosophy.”

“I will never go back to believing in that kooky bullshit that my family spews,” Ben states determinedly. “I always have and always will be devoted to First Order and this cause. You can trust me.”

“Can I?” Snoke questions daringly. “Perhaps. But perhaps I can’t be sure until I present you with one, final test of loyalty.”

Ben frowns at him, a sick, twisted feeling brewing in the pit of his gut.

“Impress me on this one, last case,” Snoke tells him, reaching for a thick folder of papers already assembled on his desk. “And I will make you partner.” He holds it out to him.

Ben eyes it warily, unable to help the sinking feeling that he’s staring at his own doom. He hesitantly takes the folder from Snoke’s wrinkly hands, suppressing the underlying tremor in his fingers.  
Slowly, he flips it open, and his eyes land on the name that would send him reeling into a dismal crisis.

Han Solo.

“You have never faced such a test,” Snoke murmurs coaxingly. “But I am confident in your strength. After this, I will no longer have any doubts about your commitment to the firm. Together, you and I can make First Order far greater than-”

“No.”

His defiance pierces through Snoke’s incessant rambling and reverberates throughout the room. The word rolls from Ben’s lips without much forethought, but as soon as it does, it is laden with conviction.

“Excuse me?” Snoke demands in a low, menacing growl.

Ben lifts his chin rebelliously, his gaze bold and unwavering. “No. I will not help you prosecute my father.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it,” Snoke purls. “Putting a lawyer on a case where his father is the accused? There would be too much room for bias, which you know is against my personal philosophy. All you’d need to do, young Ren, is provide a written testimony as a witness to your father’s crimes. The initial evidence is all we need to get this case off the ground.”

Ben chuckles humourlessly. “I’m not doing that.”

Snoke’s expression darkens. “What happened to being fully devoted to the cause?” he confronts him lividly. “Is Han Solo not a criminal? Does he not deserve to face the repercussions of his crimes?”

“No,” Ben repeats, the use of the word growing more and more familiar to him. “He doesn’t. He did that for...” He hesitates. “He did all that for me.”

“You are letting your emotions-”

“And what the fuck is this, anyway?” Ben explodes, waving the folder in front of him. “You’ve just been harbouring evidence on a case against my father for God knows how fucking long, just so you could pull it out and blackmail me with it as you please? You’re fucking crazy! I’ll never involve myself in this!”

“Then you will never make partner,” Snoke snarls wrathfully, his fists trembling with fury at his sides.

“Fine,” Ben spits back, reciprocating his anger in full force. “You were never going to make me partner anyway, were you? You were just stringing me along on a leash so that I’d always do what you say and never leave.”

Snoke’s nostrils flare. “You are a liar and a scoundrel, just like your father,” he hisses. “Your tune so quick to change, all just for one slut.”

“Fuck you!” Ben shouts, a raging fire surging in his chest. “I can’t fucking take working for a twisted, old fuck like you anymore! I quit!”

The last two syllables ring over and over again in both men’s ears - those fateful words, never before fathomed by either party.

_I quit._

A sensation of unadulterated release floods Ben’s entire body as a revelation suddenly hits him. _I don’t need you anymore._ He whirls on his heel, marching straight for the door, so close to freedom that he can almost taste it.

He is only inches away from the exit when Snoke halts him in his steps with two simple words, tearing the freedom right back from his reach.

“The girl.”

Ben freezes with his hand on the doorknob.

“She’s not from here, is she?” Snoke asks casually.

Ben blanches, but keeps his back resolutely turned.

“I noticed it immediately upon meeting her - the accent, that is,” Snoke continues nonchalantly. “I knew that you had an adopted cousin, but you never told me much on her background. So I did a little digging. Turns out, she’s from Jakku. Did you know that?”

Ben’s breathing has quickened tenfold.

“You must have known. I’m sure your uncle has told you the story numerous times in the past,” Snoke goes on. “You lied to me. She was never your adopted cousin. Luke Skywalker was participating in some humanitarian work over in the post-war Jakku wastelands when he found her - a young, abandoned girl with no home or family. So he took her in.” His lip curls into a wicked smirk. “But he couldn’t afford the proper paperwork for her at the time, could he?”

“You motherfucker,” Ben curses, dropping his head resignedly. “You fucking-”

“She’s an illegal immigrant,” Snoke concludes, utterly self-satisfied. “And we abide by a strict, no-tolerance policy on the matter in this country. If she were to be found out as one, she would be deported, would she not?”

Ben squeezes his eyes shut, his eyelids already pricking with helpless tears.

“I would hate for something like that to happen to a young, bright girl with so much potential,” Snoke purrs insinuatingly. “Wouldn’t you?”

Ben rests his forehead against the mahogany door with a stoic thump. “Yes.”

* * *

“Attracted to Ben. That’s just crazy.”

Rey continuously mutters broken sentence strings of that nature under her breath as she studies inside her dorm room that night. Barely able to focus on the numbers under her pen, she has to physically shake these improper thoughts from her mind with the occasional jerk of her head.

Ben. The one, solid foundation of her life for such a large portion of her childhood. He taught her almost everything she knows, shaped her into who she is today, protected her, had her back, and promised to always be there for her. He is the reason why she doesn’t fear people anymore, why she knows exactly when to fight back, and how. For so long, he was her rock, her role model, her best friend.

And now she doesn’t know what he is. An enemy? A friend?

It’s complicated enough, even without the latent sexual tension that seemed to spontaneously spurt with age.

She sighs and drops her pen in resignation. “I need to end this.”

She plucks her phone from her desk and opens up their chat. With trembling fingers, she proceeds to tap out a clumsy farewell, populated with cringeworthy cliches and flimsy excuses. “It’s for the best that we don’t see each other anymore,” she types. “Things are just too messy between us, and until we can sort them out-”

His contact name pops up and fills her entire screen, abruptly cutting her off.

He’s calling her.

With absolutely no hesitation whatsoever, she picks up, every sentiment that she just typed completely flying out the window. “Hello?” she answers, sounding just a bit too eager.

“Hey...” he says, his tone solemn. “Can I...? Actually, can you come over for a sec? Are you free?”

“Uh...” She glances down at her very unfinished assignment. “Sure. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I...” He exhales loudly. “I just wanna talk about something with you.”

“Okay,” she replies tentatively. “I’ll be there in ten.”

“Cool.”

He hangs up, leaving her speechless on a dead phone line.

* * *

He awaits her arrival with self-loathing coursing through his veins.

He doesn’t know what to expect when she gets here, or even why he called her over in the first place, but he does know one thing for certain.

When she finds out what he did, she’ll never speak to him again.

Three sharp knocks at the door and he’s already on his feet on the second, rushing over to answer it with long, urgent strides.

She’s on the other side, peering up at him with wide, inquisitive eyes. “Hey,” she breathes. She’s clearly panting from having hurried over. “What’s wrong?”

Pure instinct takes over. If there is any semblance of thought at all that goes through his head in that moment, it would be something along the lines of, “Fuck it, I’m going to lose her anyway.”

He impulsively seizes her by the waist and kisses her.

She doesn’t have time or air to gasp, so she freezes instead, a million thoughts and emotions flying through her body all at once. The itch in her fingers and desire in her chest win out, snuffing out all prior feelings of guilt, shame, or dishonour. She readily returns his embrace, revelling in the way his huge form envelops her entire body.

But it’s about a full twenty seconds into making out that Rey suddenly comes to her senses, shoves him off of her, and strikes him across the face.

Ben gapes at her with wide, flabbergasted eyes as he cradles his affected cheek in one hand. “What the fuck?”

“What the fuck _me_? What the fuck _you_!” she retorts. “What are you doing?”

He squints and darts his eyes back and forth in perplexity. “Kissing...you?”

“Did I give you permission to do that?” she demands hotly.

His face scrunches up into an almost comical grimace of confusion. “You literally put your tongue in my mouth.”

“You kissed me!”

“You put your tongue in my mouth!”

“It was a reflex!” she shouts in defence, stomping a grouchy foot down onto his floorboards.

He splutters incoherently for a few seconds, at an absolute loss on what to say next. “Fine!” he finally spits out. “Just go, then!”

“Fine!” she echoes, glowering at him spitefully.

But she doesn’t move.

She just stares at him, her gaze smouldering with intensity and passion.

He stares back.

The following ten minutes are a frenzied blur to Rey. Next thing she really knows, she’s on his bed, pinned under his arms, and clutching him by his bare shoulders as he lithely thrusts into her, too engrossed in her own bliss to even try to remember how she got there.

* * *

She awakens gently, slowly.

The events of the previous night don’t come back to her suddenly. They don’t hit her like a train hurtling towards her at a hundred miles an hour. They seep into her consciousness like warmth, filling her with a joy that she never knew she’s always longed for.

She turns to find him already awake, peering at her through drooped eyelids.

Despite being halfway closed, his eyes betray his vulnerability.

She scoots over and buries her face into his neck, curls an arm over his chest, and hugs him close. He presses his lips tenderly against her temple, and she reactively smiles, the action flooding her with peace.

All these years, and she’s finally figured it out.

She and Ben belong together.

She hums with pleasure, inclining her head to look up at him. “Like a sister to you, huh?” she murmurs wryly.

“Shhh,” he hushes her in the quietest of whispers, gently nudging her face back into the nape of his neck.

She lifts her head back up. “I guess this year’s Thanksgiving dinner is gonna be _pretty_ awkward-”

“Shhh, shhh,” he shushes her again, pushing her face back down. “No talking. Just let me enjoy this.”

She stubbornly shakes his hand off her head and upturns her face once more. “Why?” she snickers. “I want to rub this in your face.”

“You rubbed enough in my face last night.”

“Gross!” she cackles, slapping him on the arm. “Come on, what’s wrong? Why do you always have to be grumpy? I thought it was because you needed to get laid, but clearly not.”

He releases a chuckle, but says nothing, instead lovingly brushing her hair back from her face with his fingers.

She grins at him cheekily - the same mischievous grin she’s been annoying him with since he was sixteen. “Say something,” she coaxes.

He scrunches up his face in mock deliberation. “You’re shit in bed.”

“ _You’re_ shit!” she sputters back, half-amused and half-outraged.

“Always quick with the elaborate comebacks,” he drawls sarcastically.

“Oh yeah? Well...your ears are too big for your head and you’re just gonna have to live with that,” she jibes, out of a lack of anything cleverer to retort.

They both giggle at their own childish banter, their intertwined fingers squeezing with shared laughter.

She makes to kiss him, the tips of her fingers grazing against his chin and her lips hovering over his, but the sustained, raucous buzz of her phone on his nightstand startles the both of them. She pulls back from him, much to his chagrin, and squints over at her screen. “It’s Rose,” she mentions in a murmur, before removing her arm from its slung position over his chest and reaching to answer it.

Panic blooms in his core and rapidly spreads to his limbs like internal wildfire. The media must have already picked up the story. There is no going back now.

He quickly snatches the device right from her fingers.

They stare at each other dumbly for several seconds.

“Um...what the hell?” she barks, a hint of irritation in her tone. “Give me back my phone?”

The refusal rolls from his tongue. “No.” He swiftly declines the call.

Her nostrils flare with incredulity. “Excuse me?” she says. “Why not?”

“Just...” He looks pained as he fumbles for the words. “Please. Don’t look at your phone. Just for...another hour. One more hour.”

“Why?” she demands, her intonation rising with anger.

“Just...trust me, Rey, okay?” he implores. “Just do me this one favour. Just this once. Then I’ll never ask anything of you again.”

Her eyes dart at the phone when it vibrates a few more times in his hand, alerting them of several messages. But she nods. “Okay,” she acquiesces, crawling out from under the blanket and sitting back on the balls of her feet. “Okay, Ben. I won’t.”

The tension in his features dissipates with relief. “Thank you,” he breathes.

She smiles at him warmly, and holds out her arms. “Come here.”

He smiles back, leaning into her embrace.

Foolishly.

In one, fluid motion, she snatches the phone back from his unknowing fingers and uses her other hand to trap him unever the blanket in momentary inhibition. She wastes no time in scrambling out of bed and dashing to the other side of the room.

“Rey, no!” he shouts in a desperate growl, fighting his way out of the blanket.

When he finally manages to wrench it from over his head, he sees the look of betrayal already etched onto her face.

It’s too late.

“You’re a monster,” she hisses, tears already trickling down her cheeks.

He says nothing, because there’s nothing that he can say, but visibly flinches at her declaration. Although he saw this coming from a mile away, it still hurts. It all hurts.

“I can’t believe...you...” she sobs, furiously swiping the tears from her face. “You... I don’t...”

Words do not come to him.

He merely watches her seize her clothes from his bedroom floor, rush through putting them back on, and bolt out of his apartment as quickly as she possibly can.


	6. Take me back to the time we had our very first fight

It’s only eight in the morning on a Saturday, and she had very obviously not come home last night, but Rey barges loudly and determinedly into her dorm room, too hysterical to care.

Her roommate is already awake, having been the one to deliver the deal-breaking news to her, but is still bundled up comfily in her own bed, hair disheveled and eyes squinty against the sudden influx of light.

“That _fucking_ asshole!” Rey growls furiously. She slams the door shut behind her and and paces madly about the room. “That piece of shit! That goddamn...” She punches the wall. “...worthless...” Punch. “...piece of shit!” Punch.

Rose groggily pushes herself up onto one elbow. “So I take it you read my link.”

Rey’s shoulders heave with harsh, heavy pants of rage. “He is going to pay for this,” she grinds out through gritted teeth. “We are going to fucking _get_ this guy!”

“You’re angry,” Rose states.

“Yes!” Rey exclaims, flinging her arms up in the air. “Of course I’m angry! I’ve never been angrier in my entire life!”

“And you’re sad.”

Rey falters marginally. “Yes,” she chokes out. “Poor Han. We all knew...” She pauses, gulping down the rising lump in her throat. “We all knew what he did. But we also knew that he did it for his family. Including that...fucking...despicable piece of trash.”

“He’s not who you thought he was.”

“Who, Han? No, he’s always been a good man, even now-”

“Kylo Ren.”

Rey’s jaw claps shut with a click of her teeth.

“He’s not the same person from your childhood - the one you loved.”

Her nostrils flare with outrage. “Look, just because you took psych for, like, a semester, doesn’t mean you suddenly know everything about everyone!”

“I just want to talk everything out with you, Rey,” Rose says evenly, maintaining her composure. “I’m just as shocked as the next person, but I can’t imagine how you must be feeling right now. Especially with...everything that you’ve been doing with him lately.”

Rey regards her warily. “What do you mean? What things?”

“Everything we talked about.” Rose rubs her eyes and slowly climbs out of bed. “I know you’ve been hiding stuff from me, and to be honest, it kind of upset me a little. I thought we were close.”

Rey recoils in guilt at that.

“But I know it’s just complicated. I want you to know I don’t judge you. I understand everything you’re going through and I’m here for you.”

Rey can only stare at her dumbly.

“We’ve always been honest with each other, right?” Rose goads her gently.

The other girl relaxes her tensed shoulders as a feeling of relief and peace passes through her. She nods. “Right,” she mouths.

She tells Rose everything.

* * *

“What the hell is she doing?”

Rose sighs. “I have no idea.”

She and Finn stare gravely down at their broken friend, once again finding themselves utterly helpless to her extended emotional breakdown.

Over the past two weeks, Rey has been purely and thoroughly devastated. After divulging every shameful detail of her sordid affair to Rose, Rey no longer has any qualms about openly wallowing in her misery. Her coping mechanisms during the current mourning period have, so far, consisted of a series of very sporadic, random, and unpredictable activities, such as rollerblading around campus at three in the morning, taking shots with the Persians across the hall - despite having never spoken to them in all of her two years of college - and showing up to lectures in her pajamas with only a bucket of KFC and a milkshake.

Currently, she is slumped against one corner of the dorm halls, clearly drunk, half-conscious, and listlessly eating from a plate of barbecue ribs.

Finn apprehensively approaches her and nudges her with his foot.

The action makes her groan comatosely and her head loll to the side.

“Rey?” Rose calls out tentatively, squatting down beside her. “Do you need help getting back to our dorm?”

She grunts in vague affirmation. The plate of ribs in her hands flops limply into her lap.

“You done with those ribs?” Finn asks tenderly as he reaches out for them.

She supplies him with a sloppy nod and hands them to him, eyes still drowsily shut.

“I’m gonna eat these because they look delicious, alright?” he tells her in the same gentle whisper.

“Mmm,” is all she can manage in response.

The two friends hoist Rey’s weight on either side over their shoulders and gradually walk her back to her dorm room, with Finn precariously balancing the plate of ribs in one hand along the way. Once inside the privacy of their room, they haphazardly plonk Rey onto her bed.

Rey mumbles unintelligible strings of sentences into her pillow and curls up into an awkward ball.

“Shhh,” Rose soothes her, draping the blankets over Rey’s body. “Go to sleep.”

“Mmm,” Rey replies, and rubs her face drowsily against the sheets. If it weren’t for the pungent stench of alcohol wafting up from her lips, she might have looked quite cosy.

But a wince of sorrow suddenly mars her previously tranquil features. A stream of tears escapes from her eyes, rolling freely down her cheeks. Rey ducks her head as the first sob breaks out from her lips, just as surprised as the other two at her own abrupt mood swing.

“Aw, Rey,” Rose tuts. She was hoping Rey wouldn’t cry today. It always unsettles her to see her friend, normally so fearless and headstrong, appear so vulnerable. She strokes her comfortingly by the hair - something she’s had to do a lot of over the past couple of weeks. “Don’t cry.”

Finn can only watch in dismay as huge, heaving sobs wrack Rey’s entire body.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Rose consoles her unwaveringly. “We’re here for you, Rey. We’re here for you.”

“Jesus Christ,” Finn breathes in disbelief. “Has she really been like this?”

“Yes,” Rose confirms in a somber murmur. “It’s been really bad.”

“I didn’t know he mattered so much to her,” Finn admits, folding his arms over his chest. “Han Solo.”

“He does,” Rose says musingly, “but not as much as his son.”

Finn furrows his eyebrows at the prospect, casting a concerned glance at Rose.

Rose blinks back solemnly. “You don’t choose who you love.”

* * *

The Coke bottle label in Ben’s hands has been torn to shreds - the result of his finicky fingers, anxiously peeling and twisting as he nervously awaits his guest’s arrival.

Luke Skywalker’s arrival.

His manically bouncing knee stutters to a halt when he spots his uncle delicately squeezing his way through the crowded diner. He gulps as their eyes finally meet, after so many years of cold, bitter silence and unspoken, mutual resentment. It’s rather anticlimactic, the way they mildly greet each other with a stoic nod of acknowledgement, before Luke shuffles into the seat opposite Ben with a huff of exertion. Given the weight of six years of estrangement between them, Ben had expected a much more theatrical reunion.

But all he sees in his uncle’s eyes are sadness and disappointment, and while that very same look would’ve immensely angered Ben in his early youth, he can only share in its sentiment today. He’s let his whole family down.

“Ben,” Luke says, merely for the sake of breaking the ice.

“Luke,” Ben returns, for a lack of anything better to respond with. “Thank you for agreeing to see me,” he adds after an uncertain pause.

“Well, we’ve been waiting for you to call us back all this time,” Luke points out. “It was always you who refused to come see us.”

Ben winces. “I know,” he murmurs. The words, “I’m sorry,” linger on the back of his tongue, but something - pride or fear of vulnerability - keeps them firmly planted there.

“I assume you wanted to discuss the matter of your father,” Luke mentions forthrightly.

Ben’s gaze briefly flickers up from the shredded Coke label between his fingers. “Yes,” he chokes out. “I just wanted to...”

Luke cocks his head to the side, closely scrutinising the subtleties of his nephew’s expression - the light crease between his eyebrows, the pinched look in his eyes, the unhappy downturn of his mouth. While his initial reaction to seeing Ben for the first time in six years was to acknowledge how well he’d grown into his looks throughout his twenties, all he can see now is the sheer weariness and emptiness, so apparent on his face. The boy is simply laden with regret.

“I wanted you to know...” Ben continues, once again trailing off with frantic uncertainty. “Just that...” He rakes his fingers through his hair. “I...”

“Ben,” Luke speaks, startling Ben out of his frenetic overthinking. “Just say it. I’m willing to listen.”

Ben clenches his jaw.

Luke can’t help but notice how young and vulnerable he suddenly looks.

“If you’re not already,” Ben begins, “I want you to help him.”

Luke blinks back at him impassively.

“My dad,” Ben elaborates. “You gotta help him. He could get jail time for this, and he doesn’t deserve it. Even I know that. I want to help him too, but I...can’t. It’s complicated. And I’m not allowed on the case, even at First Order, but I know how to help you help him. I’ve been there long enough to know their approach, their tactics. I know exactly how they’re gonna tackle this, and I know how you can respond. If we do it right, we might just save him.” He sucks in a sharp breath and holds it as he awaits Luke’s response.

Luke’s lips are parted, his jaw slack with thorough surprise. Through his nephew’s nervous babble, he realises just why Ben is here today, finally willing to show his face after six years of hiding. Not only that, but he knows exactly what happened to lead Ben to this point, where he truly feels as if he has no other choice but to turn to his uncle for help. Luke knows more than anyone that he is the last person Ben ever wanted to see again. He would not have come here if it wasn’t something serious. “It’s Snoke, isn’t it?” Luke blurts, shaking his head in solemn disbelief.

Ben fixates closely on the Coke bottle in his hands, too chagrined to meet the other man’s eye.

“Oh God. He didn’t find out about...?” Luke hesitates. He is too distraught to even verbalise the possibility.

“It was a mistake,” Ben whispers morosely. “All of it. I shouldn’t have let him near her.” He forces himself to face his uncle. “I’m sorry.”

Luke presses his lips together and simply nods. He is not willing just yet to completely absolve him of his recklessness.

“You don’t have to worry about me anymore,” Ben tells him, the proclamation sounding like a sincere vow. “I won’t come near Rey again. She hates me, anyway.”

Luke’s eyes snap up to meet Ben’s. “She doesn’t know?”

“Of course not,” Ben affirms. “You think she’d be happy knowing?”

Luke stares at him in astonishment. _For_ _once_ , he muses, _the_ _kid_ _is_ _doing_ _something_ _for_ _someone_ _other_ _than_ _himself_.

“Tell my dad I’m sorry, okay?” Ben continues. “I just can’t...face him. I can’t tell him myself. And my mom, too, for that matter. Tell them I’m sorry. For everything.”

The emotional weakness and vulnerability is all too much for him to handle, and Luke can see him physically cringing at his own words as they leave his mouth. He watches him scoot out of his seat and drop some cash onto the table before hastily striding away, clearly too ashamed to endure another remorseful moment in this booth.

Luke, on the other hand, remains there for a long while after Ben’s departure. He takes the time to carefully ponder the brief, but incredibly meaningful encounter with his nephew, replaying each and every word in his mind. He shuts his eyes when all paths of thought lead him to one inevitable conclusion.

This time, it really wasn’t Ben’s fault.

He begrudgingly fishes his phone out of his jacket pocket and dials Rey’s number.

* * *

Rey was eleven when she had her first big fight with Ben.

She never told him, all these years, but up until now, she’s always harboured some resentment against him for it. She never really understood why he did what he did, and hence could never really forgive him. He never provided her with a proper explanation as to why he suddenly changed his mind and decided to cancel their trip.

She’d been so excited for that concert for so long.

It was a tumultuous time for Rey, having just been flung into the perilous, prepubescent tempest of middle school melodrama. Music was the only thing that could really get her through those times. Nobody seemed to understand her woes but the lead singer of her favourite band, who not only expressed her exact feelings to a flawless T, but crooned it so mellifluously into her ears. Luke couldn’t possibly comprehend her hardships the way he did, always ordering her to clean up her room and do the dishes when all she wanted to do was curl up in bed, put on her headphones and brood silently. Not even Ben understood her, too preoccupied with girls and college to ever take her troubles seriously.

But he did miss her little smiles, and the melodious chime of her high-pitched giggles, and his own life was considerably darker in tandem with her mood. Plus, she was actually getting to be quite irritating, and he didn’t know how many more grumpy, monosyllabic grunts he could endure before it would drive him to take her iPod and run it over with his car.

He kicked open her door one night, trudging up to where she sat skulking at her desk, hunched over her homework with her headphones firmly planted over her ears. “Hey,” he grunted, tactlessly yanking one of the speakers from her right ear.

“Oi!” she complained. She scowled deeply as she struggled to unravel her hair from her tangled headphone wires. “What?”

He slammed two tickets down onto the desk beside her. “Here,” he said. “Because you’re being a little shit lately, and it’s annoying me.”

She briefly glowered at him but peered down at the tickets, scanning them with squinty, suspicious eyes.

They bulged to the size of golf balls when she registered the title.

“ _Ahhh_!” she screeched, making Ben jerk back in surprise. “ _Ahhhhhhhhh_!”

“Oh my God, stop!” he yelled over her earsplitting outburst.

“You’re taking me to go see The Biths next month?” she shrieked.

“Yes! Calm down!” he shouted back.

“Ben!” she screamed elatedly, leaping out of her seat and throwing herself at him.

He had to stumble back quite a few steps from the momentum of her embrace.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she sobbed hysterically. She bounced up and down like a ball of ceaseless energy as she held him.

“Alright,” he laughed, fondly patting her on the back. “It’s fine. The tickets weren’t even that expensive, cos The Biths suck.”

“You suck,” she quipped. But she was still beaming with euphoria, her arms tightly bound around Ben’s middle.

“As you probably already know cos you’re a little nerd, they’re only playing in Tattooine this year. So we’ll need to drive out that weekend to see them.”

She screeched excitedly again, making him flinch once more.

“What’s going on?” Luke exclaimed, suddenly appearing at the door. He was bracing himself with one hand against the doorframe, apparently out of breath after having raced over.

“Sh- Sorry, Uncle,” Ben stammered, gently prying Rey’s skinny arms from around his waist. “Rey just got really excited. It’s okay, no-one’s hurt.”

“I... I ran...” Luke puffed. “I ran all the way from the garden. My heart was...”

“Sorry,” Ben murmured again.

“Ben’s taking me to Tattooine!” Rey squealed. Her ponytail bobbed animatedly atop her head as she bounced delightedly on her heels.

Luke frowned and turned to Ben, a flash of concern in his widened eyes. “You are?”

“Yeah,” Ben replied tentatively. “To see that stupid band she likes. Is that okay?”

Luke hesitated. He glanced at Rey’s frantic, hopeful face. “Of course,” he replied.

“ _Yes_!” Rey exclaimed. “Oh my God, I am so excited. I’m gonna go to the bathroom before I pee my pants.”

Ben chuckled as she darted out of the room. He turned back to Luke with a wide grin and a shrug of his shoulders, secretly pleased that he’d managed to instil some life back into Rey.

But when all Luke did was stare solemnly at the floor, his mood instantly dampened.

“What?” he inquired warily. “What’s wrong?”

Luke deliberated on something for a beat too long, rubbing his hand against his beard as he frowned in deep thought. “It’s nothing,” he eventually replied, pushing himself off the doorframe and drifting away.

Ben eyed him uneasily as he disappeared down the hall.

* * *

“Ben.”

He looked up from the TV screen at the sound of his uncle’s voice, instinctively pressing pause on his game. “You’re still up?”

Luke nodded as he slowly ambled into Ben’s room.

Ben acutely noticed the way he wrung his hands together in apprehension.

“I need to talk to you about something,” Luke prefaced.

Ben didn’t like the way that sounded. That kind of delivery was so heavy and foreboding that it could only ever be acompanies by bad news. “Okay,” he gulped.

Luke sighed, softly nudging the door shut and lowering himself into Ben’s desk chair. “It’s about Rey.”

Panic spread like chilling ice water through his veins. “Is she okay?” he choked out. His pessimistic mind was already running through a million worst-case-scenarios.

“She’s fine. I mean, she’s healthy,” Luke preempted, holding up an assuring hand. “It’s just... There’s something I never told you about her.”

“What’s that?”

Luke sighed again. He paused for a pronounced length of time in silent rumination.

It drove Ben to the brink of enraged madness.

“When I adopted her,” Luke finally spoke, “it wasn’t from an orphanage around here. I found her during my missionary trip to Jakku.”

Ben dropped the controller in his hands onto his lap. “Jakku?” he echoed disbelievingly. “Rey is from Jakku?”

“Yes,” Luke affirmed. “She was unconscious when I found her.”

Ben’s jaw dropped.

“Lying amongst the rubble of her house after the Imperial bombings. Her parents were God-knows-where. I think they abandoned her.” Luke’s voice grew thick with emotion at the memory. “She had no-one. I didn’t even know if she was alive, but I couldn’t leave her there. When I took her back to the hospital, they told me she’d lost her memory.”

Ben could only stare back at him in stunned silence. He loathed to imagine that Rey was ever in that sort of environment, that she’d ever existed in that context.

“So I took her in,” Luke explained. “I took her back here, to live with us. But I could only afford enough forged paperwork to adopt her. I couldn’t pay for a citizenship.”

“She’s illegal,” Ben realised breathlessly.

“Yes,” Luke confirmed. “And because of that, I cannot let you take her to Tattooine.”

Ben exhaled and shook his head, burying his face into his hands.

“You know how strict they are on that border. They check...everything. We cannot risk taking her through there.”

“How could you let this go on for so long?” Ben confronted incredulously, outraged by his uncle’s revelation. “You couldn’t afford it then, but you can now!”

“She’s too old now,” Luke said. “And with this new government, everything we do is so closely monitored. It would be too suspicious.”

“Then what?” Ben demanded. “She can’t leave the country her entire life?”

“Once she gets a green card,” Luke mentioned, “she can.”

“When she starts work, or...or...gets married?” Ben spluttered.

Luke looked at him morosely. “I couldn’t see any other choice.”

Ben only scoffed, glaring off to the side resentfully. “What a precarious life you’ve set up for her here. She could literally be deported any minute.”

“I never anticipated the policies of this new government,” Luke defended. “They came in and changed everything so fast, I...I...” He sighed. “It was only meant to be like this for a couple of years. Just until I could afford it.”

“She’s been dying to go to this concert,” Ben said, looking up at his uncle beseechingly. “She’ll hate me.”

Luke merely shook his head. The conversation was over; Ben could see that from the way Luke was already rising from his seat and swinging the door open. “You’ll need to learn how to be the bad guy, sometimes,” Luke told him. “You can’t always be her hero.”

* * *

Her reaction was much quieter than he’d expected.

Somehow, that made it so much worse.

Tears trickled silently down her cheeks as she glowered down at her hands, which deftly twirled her iPod between small fingers.

“I’m sorry,” Ben whispered, staring at her pleadingly.

He’d found her on the garden bench outside. She’d been swinging her legs and humming jovially along to the music from her headphones - a perfect picture of radiance and light. When she’d spotted him, she’d waved at him merrily, a big, bright, goofy smile outstretching her lips. He’d hated to sit himself down beside her with the disappointing news and ruin her delightful countenance.

“Why?” she questioned, her voice low and strangled.

“We can’t go.”

“But why?” she exploded, turning to him with wrathful eyes.

He hesitated. “I don’t wanna lie to you.”

“Then don’t.”

“But I can’t tell you.”

“Argh!” she growled irately. It was hopeless dealing with him, she decided, as she sprung to her feet. “You’re a psychopath!” she spat at him. “I hate you!”

He watched her despondently as she stormed back into the house, wondering how in the world he would ever make this up to her.

* * *

Rey hasn’t thought about that incident in years. Though it did plague her for a long time, and it took a good couple of months before she even allowed Ben to be on amiable terms with her again, the memory always seemed so trivial in the context of the vast, complicated history she shares with him.

Today, however, she can’t get it out of her mind.

Following Luke’s call, and the grave, lengthy explanation he spontaneously sprung upon her at nine o’clock in the morning, Rey can finally say that she understands why Ben did what he did all those years ago. The realisation strikes her like a heavy boulder to the chest, crushing her under its enormous weight.

“He was just trying to protect you,” Luke had said to her over the phone.

 _Yes_ , Rey agrees now. _He always has been_.

* * *

Her body does not feel like her own. It acts of its own accord, driven purely by emotion. Each movement is not a deliberate action orchestrated by her logical mind, but rather the adrenaline thrumming through her veins. She’s had a crazy month, during which she has never once felt like her true self, but she’s never felt as much of a slave to her own emotions as she does in this moment.

She can barely even feel her own feet stomping against the ground as she barrels down the hallway to his apartment, every pore of her body tingling with fervour. Her hand flies up and bangs noisily against his door. “Hey!” she screams past the earsplitting thumps. “Hey! Open up! Get the fuck out here!”

When the door remains stubbornly shut, she dissolves into a mess of kicking and incoherent screaming, not even caring in the slightest about the ruckus she must be making for his neighbours. “Open up, open up, open up!” she shrieks hoarsely.

Just as she is about to cross the line into full delirium, the door swings open beneath her hand.

Ben is, of course, on the other side, blinking at her in nonplussed horror.

She’s never seen him look so bedraggled. His hair is a wild, disheveled mess atop his head, his eyes are shadowed with prominent, dark circles, and his complexion is pale and haggard.

“What the hell are you doing?” he manages in a breathless whisper. “Are you deranged?”

Only Ben has the gall to insult her at a time like this, even after all that they’ve been through.

She shoves him hard - though he barely budges - and sweeps into the apartment, slamming the door shut behind her. “Luke told me everything.”

“Luke?” he croaks miserably.

“Yeah. He told me why you did what you did.”

Annoyance flits across his features. “Did he?” he challenges. “And what exactly did he tell you?”

“You did it to protect me.”

He snaps his jaw shut in awed silence.

Rey nods pointedly. “You never thought he’d tell me that, huh?” she says. “You never thought he’d ever tell me anything remotely positive about you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he obstinately denies, elusively dropping his gaze.

“Snoke has moles,” she says. “Everywhere. He has little spies, little birdies, in every public department in the state, and they feed him private information. He knows everything about everyone, like some sort of omnipotent god. And he leverages on that information to blackmail people. He’s a corrupt, twisted, dangerous piece of shit. And he found out something about me.”

“Like I said,” Ben mutters coldly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now, get out. I only opened the door so you’d stop terrorising my building.”

“What’s the fucking matter with you?” she splutters exasperatedly. “I know why you did what you did! I don’t agree with it, but I know! Why are you still trying to push me away?”

“Why do you think?” he explodes, finally letting the emotions gush from him like blood from a reopened wound. “Do you think I wanna encourage this fucked-up, toxic, unhealthy whatever-the-fuck-it-is between us? You’re only nineteen!”

“And you have the emotional maturity of a twelve-year-old! So maybe that makes _me_ the pedophile!”

“Can you be serious for five fucking seconds-?”

“I’ve been serious this whole time!” she yells irately.

“I’m a bad person, Rey!” he blurts. “Alright? I know that now! For so long, I’ve justified my decision to leave home and join First Order, but I was just blinding myself! I see how toxic and disgusting that place is, but it’s been too long! I’m one of them, now!”

“It’s not too late.”

“It is,” he insists darkly. “And you... You deserve better than that.”

“How about you let me decide that for myself?” she snaps. “God, stop trying to control who I date, _Dad_.”

He scowls at her in shock. “There are just...so many things wrong with what you just said-”

“I don’t give a fuck!” she screams into the air.

“Why are you here?” he demands, hands balling into fists at his sides. “What were you trying to accomplish by showing up here and causing a scene?”

“I wanted to confront you.”

“Why?” he presses, taking a long stride towards her.

She has to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact. She can feel the heat, the intensity, the passion, rolling off of his body in waves. A spark of tension pulses between them, ignited by their sudden proximity.

“What were you trying to get out of this?” he probes persistently.

Her fingers twitch at her sides. She knows what he’s doing. He’s daring her to initiate it.

Her pride is much too battered at this point for her to resist.

They collide like two oncoming trains, entangling themselves in a chaotic mishmash of lips, tongues, hands, and hair. There is so much ferocity, anger, sadness, and passion between them, that finally embracing feels like a chemical combustion.

It’s only a few minutes later that Rey is a naked, wanton mess on his bed, scrabbling aimlessly at his hair as his mouth works wonders between her legs. Something tells her that, somehow, the two of them will always find their way back to each other like this; that, no matter what the universe throws as a wedge between them, she will always end up here. With him.

And she couldn’t be happier about it.

* * *

She awakens first and watches him sleep, resisting the temptation to wake him with a touch, a kiss, or a full-fledged head-butt.

It’s a while before he follows suit. His eyelids slowly flutter open, a quirk appears in the corner of his mouth, and he throws a heavy arm over her.

She giddily scooches further into his reach, burying her face into his chest. It’s been a long, long time - perhaps even her entire life - since she’s felt so peaceful, completely engulfed in his warm, protective embrace. She peppers kisses gradually down his neck, his shoulder, his chest, his stomach...

He wrenches her back up to eye-level. “No,” he mumbles, tucking her back into his side. “Just lie here.”

“Why?” she coos, running a finger down his chest. “Come on. I want to.”

“I have to get up for work soon,” he tells her in a pained grumble, sighing and pressing his lips to her hair.

“Then I’ll do it quickly,” she compromises, sliding her hand down to his crotch.

He intervenes by catching her fingers in his, bringing her hand back up to his lips. “Who knew you’d grow up to be such a little horndog?”

“Who knew you’d grow up to be such a little prude?” she counters, jutting her bottom lip out in a pout. But she relents with a grin, electing to instead snuggle cozily into his side.

He releases another long sigh, but it is one of anguish, not peace. “What are we gonna do?”

“Hmmm?” she hums inquiringly, lifting her head to peer at him.

“About my dad,” he elaborates.

She frowns. “What do you mean?”

He cups a hand over one side of her face, grazing a thumb across her lips. “We have to help him.”


	7. Take me home where we met so many years before

It’s been six years since Ben Solo has seen or even spoken to his parents. Their reunion this morning is a very personal, momentous occasion - one that Rey feels is too private for her to be present for.

She waits patiently in the car for it all to play out, glancing up every so often at the still front of Han and Leia’s house. She picks at her hangnails anxiously as she wonders, with burning curiosity, what is going on inside that house at the moment.

Are they laughing? Are they crying? Are Han and Leia furious? Is Ben kicking over the television in a tantrum? All of the above?

Rey is dying to know. She can’t even successfully distract herself with a game of Candy Crush as she sits there on tenterhooks, fretfully awaiting the verdict.

She jumps when the sound of a door flying open startles her, abruptly straightening in her seat. She squints over at the house, expecting to discover Ben storming out in a wrathful fit. Instead, she finds all three family members calmly sauntering outside, Han’s hand clapped firmly on his son’s shoulder.

Han is murmuring something intensely to Ben, who nods soberly in response.

But there is no bitterness, no hostility, no malice between them - there is only peace, and perhaps a hint of resignation.

Leia follows the two men out onto the porch, drifting calmly over to her son’s side.

Ben smirks at something Han says and nods again, his eyes dropping to his feet.

His mother coos something tenderly into his ear, curling an arm around his waist and coaxing him into a heartfelt hug. She hoists herself up onto the tips of her toes, cups a hand over his face, and plants a fierce, noisy kiss on his cheek.

He rolls his eyes a little, murmurs something that looks like, “Mom,” and timidly returns her embrace with an awkward pat on her back.

Rey wills herself not to cry at the scene.

It went better than she could have ever dreamed.

When it’s Han’s turn to share an emotional hug with his son, Leia cranes her neck to peer over at the car, and then waves a hand at Rey in invitation.

Rey, having been itching to join the family circle, eagerly leaps out of the car and jogs across the street. She practically runs into Leia’s arms, the two women embracing out of shared relief and joy.

“Thank you,” Leia whispers into the girl’s hair. “Thank you for bringing him back to us.”

They pull apart and turn to face their other halves, who are both toeing at the ground uncomfortably.

“I take it that everything went well?” Rey addresses Ben, who snaps his head up responsively.

“Uh, yeah,” he answers in an awkward mutter. “I’d say so.”

“Oh! The lemons,” Leia pipes up, resting a gentle hand on Ben’s forearm. “I forgot to give you the lemons.”

“Lemons?” Rey echoes.

“We have too many lemons,” Han chuckles explanatorily. “Our lemon tree is damn fertile. Ben said he’d be happy to take some.”

The nature of the interaction is so ordinary, so simple, that it makes Rey smile.

“I’ll go grab them,” Leia says, bustling back into the house.

“No, Mom, they’re heavy. I’ll get them,” Ben volunteers, shuffling after her.

Rey shakes her head in amazement, beaming widely at Han. “It’s like he never left.”

“Almost, yeah,” Han half-agrees.

Rey sobers slightly. “Did he tell you why he did it?”

“Yes,” he confirms solemnly. “And I don’t begrudge him that. I don’t begrudge you that, either. If he’d told me, I would have convinced him to do the same.”

“I’m so sorry that this happened, Han,” she tells him sincerely, before winding her arms around him in a hug.

“It isn’t your fault,” Han returns gruffly, cupping the back of her neck. “You did all you could. You brought him back home; that’s all that matters.” He pulls back to supply her with the warmest of smiles. “And it goes without saying that you’re my favourite of his girlfriends so far.”

Rey shifts her weight uneasily, biting the side of her lip. “I know it’s a weird concept to wrap your head around - this new...development.”

Han gives her an unbothered shrug. “You’ve always been so special to him,” he says. “It wasn’t hard to imagine what things might have been like once you matured. It seemed like it was only a matter of time.”

Rey shoots him a playful grimace. “Is that kind of weird?”

He raises his eyebrows and offers her a reluctant nod. “Yeah. Maybe,” he admits.

* * *

“No,” Finn huffs, slumping back in his seat and crossly folding his arms over his chest.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Rey demands.

“No,” Finn repeats. “If you’re looking for our approval on _this_ ,” he says, wildly motioning between Rey and the big, surly man next to her, “then no. We don’t approve.“

Ben scoffs and looks away, slouching down sulkily in his own seat. “Like we need your approval, _Finntern_.”

“Stop...calling me that!” Finn growls aggressively.

“Whoa!” Rey exclaims, and holds a hand up to each snappy, hot-tempered man. “Guys... Let’s just try to go through this calmly.”

“There’s nothing to go through,” Finn states obstinately. “We don’t approve of this. End of story. Right, Rose?”

Rose glances away tensely, murmuring something unintelligible under her breath and perfunctorily shrugging.

Finn blinks at her incredulously and angles his head to look into her eyes. “Rose?”

“I think they’re sweet!” Rose blurts out in confession. “Alright? I’m happy for Rey.”

“Happy for Rey?” Finn echoes disbelievingly. “Are you out of your mind? This guy is a fucking nightmare! Did you know he ate my lunch all the fucking time?”

“I told you, Finntern, I thought it was Hux’s lunch!” Ben yells out defensively. “I always try to eat Hux’s lunch! Why would I wanna eat some poor intern’s sandwich?”

“I don’t know, why did you defend child molesters for a living?”

“Hey, fuck you!”

“Alright, alright,” Rey intervenes again, somewhat wearily. “We’re putting all that behind us, now. Ben’s changed, Finn, alright?”

“You can’t just...repent, and then change, just like that. This isn’t a church confessional,” Finn spits harshly.

“Then at least just give him a chance to redeem himself,” Rey pleads. “Give us a chance.”

Finn scoffs, shaking his head. “You’re ‘us’, now?”

“Yes,” Rey replies resolutely. “It’s important to me, Finn.”

Finn heaves a weighty sigh, rubbing a tired hand down his face.

“Ben’s helping Han out with his case,” Rey tells them. “He can’t represent him, but he’s working just as hard as Luke to get the best possible deal out of this for Han.”

Ben shifts uncomfortably in his seat. He’s not used to having another person vouch for his character.

“That’s nice,” Rose offers, supplying the couple with a supportive smile. “You’re at least doing what you can.”

Rey smiles back. “Thanks, Rose.” She turns to regard Finn expectantly, a hopeful twinkle in her gaze.

He remains wordless, still reluctant to surrender the benefit of the doubt to the man he knows only as Kylo Ren.

“This conversation is boring me,” Ben yawns, climbing out from his seat inside their booth. “I’m gonna get a milkshake. You guys want? I’ll spot.”

Rey and Rose respond with eager nods, but Finn’s acceptance is noticeably more tentative.

“Um...” he hesitates, fleetingly glancing up at Ben. “Sure. Thanks.”

“I’m getting chocolate because I’m too lazy to remember what flavours you all want,” Ben announces, before sauntering off towards the counter.

Rey smiles, because she knows Ben, and she knows that concealed behind that blasé facade is a diplomatic peace offering.

“Just give it some time,” Rey tells her friends with earnest hope. “You just need to get used to us. But everything will turn out okay. I promise.”

Finn sighs again, finally conceding. “Fine. We’ll give it time.”

* * *

Rey and Ben stumble noisily into her dorm room sometime after dinner, feverishly making out and scrabbling at each other’s clothes and hair. The scent of hard liquor wafts into the room with them as they kick off their shoes and collapse onto her bed, loudly moaning into each other’s mouths all the way.

Ben peels Rey’s t-shirt from over her head with impatient fervour, while she almost tears his collared shirt apart in her own endeavour to undress him. She violently crawls onto him and straddles him across his lap, planting savage, open-mouthed kisses up and down his jugular.

“Argh! You bitch!” he groans lustfully when she nips him a little too hard on the neck. He roughly seizes her by the waist and turns her over, forcefully pinning her down with his arms.

Rey moans uninhibitedly against his lips, revelling in the solid muscle of his wide shoulders under her palms.

A very meek, uncomfortable voice from across the room interrupts them. “Uhhh...guys?”

The couple whip their heads towards the sound to find Rose, along with three other students, gaping at them from where they’re sitting in a dumbfounded study circle. One guy even lets his textbook slip out of his dismayed, frozen hands and land on the carpet with a thud.

“Jesus!” Ben hisses, yanking the blanket protectively over their half-naked bodies.

“Rose! Where the fuck did you guys come from?” Rey shrieks incredulously.

“Are you kidding?” Rose sputters. “We’ve literally been here the entire time!”

“And you took this long to say something?”

“We were in complete shock that two people could barge into an already-lit room, making out and taking off each other’s clothes, without realising that there are four other people already sitting here literally five feet away!”

Rey and Ben exchange a glance.

“That’s fair,” Ben admits, sounding only a tad sheepish about it.

A tense, awkward silence follows.

Rey takes a sharp breath. “So...”

“Get out!” Rose exclaims.

* * *

“I fucking hate law!” Rey laments in a loud, pained groan, which elicits an irritated shush from a nearby librarian.

Finn snickers and shakes his head at her, sliding his glasses from his face. “It’s really not that bad. You just kind of suck at it.”

“I fucking hate you for persuading me to take this elective!” she accuses, and slaps him resentfully across the arm. “I’m so screwed for this final.”

“We just have to keep trying. Have you even looked at the old notes I gave you?”

“No. They’re, like, seventy pages long.”

He rolls his eyes. “Rey, you’re not gonna do well in this subject unless you apply yourself.”

“Hold that thought,” she sighs when her phone lights up with a call.

Finn glances down and notes that it’s from Ben Solo, expecting her to excuse herself and discreetly answer it in another room.

But she surprises him by swiftly answering it right here at their desk, blatantly tapping the speakerphone icon without any reservations.

“Yo,” she nonchalantly responds.

“Watcha doin’?” Ben’s muffled voice crackles out from her phone speakers.

“Just cramming for this shitty law final,” she bleats, leaning back lackadaisically in her chair.

Ben laughs from the other side of the phone. “I told you let me help you on it.”

“Finn’s helping me.”

“Finn? He doesn’t even know how many Justices there are in the Supreme Court.”

Rey cackles maniacally at Ben’s slight. “That’s true.”

Finn stares at her with wide, affronted eyes.

“What are you doing?” she inquires conversationally.

“Taking a dump,” Ben replies. “I don’t know. I’ve been taking really bad shits lately.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. The other day, it came out green. Has that ever happened to you?”

Rey scrunches up her face in contemplation. “Not...really. I don’t think so. Maybe a little off-colour, but never full-on green. Wait, what kind of green?”

“Like camo green.”

“Hmmm. Nope, I don’t think I’ve ever had that. Have you, Finn?”

Finn’s mouth is fully agape by this point, and he can only stutter wordlessly in response.

“What the f-? Don’t ask Finn!” Ben shout-whispers. “I don’t want him to know about my...shit...problems!”

“But he already knows. You’ve been on speakerphone this entire time.”

A stunned silence follows.

“Hello?” Rey prods.

“I’ve been on speakerphone,” Ben deadpans slowly. “You put me on speakerphone in front of Finn?”

“Yeah?”

A long, exasperated sigh pours out from her phone. “Bitch,” he growls, “take me the _fuck_ off speakerphone!”

“Alright, alright! Chill!” she acquiesces, tapping her screen and holding the phone up to her ear. “You’re not on speakerphone anymore.” She leans back in her seat again. “So what do you want for dinner tonight?” She blinks a few times, and then removes the phone from her ear. “He hung up on me.”

Finn snorts and dissolves into a fit of laughter, dropping his head into his folded arms on the desk. “You two...” he wheezes.

“What?” Rey demands, scowling bemusedly at him.

“I see why you belong together.”

* * *

Rey grumpily slams her coffee mug down onto the table in front of her.

It was about the fourth time that he gave her attitude tonight that she finally had enough.

“Alright. What’s wrong?” she confronts, her nostrils flaring with irritation.

He can only spare her a moody glance as he chews sullenly on his food. “Nothing,” he murmurs with a cursory shrug.

“Nothing, my ass,” she spits. “You’ve been acting like a goddamned pissbaby all night.”

“I have not been acting like a pissbaby,” he mutters defensively.

“You have, and I’m sick of it. Just tell me what’s wrong, or I’m pushing your dinner onto the ground,” she threatens.

He scowls at her petulantly. “Fuck off.”

“I will fuck off! Believe me!” she warns him.

 _That_ is enough to make him relent. “Ugh, fine!” he groans submissively, dropping his fork. “I’ve just been feeling shitty about work.”

“Well, of course you have.”

“I mean, I’m glad we were able to settle on the case, and everything, but...” he trails off with a growl. “Like, it’s just been dawning on me that I’m still completely subservient to Snoke and fucking First Order, possibly for the rest of my life,” he elaborates.

“That’s not true,” she assures him. “We’ll find a way out of this, somehow.”

“There’s no way out of this,” he sighs helplessly.

Rey chews on her lip. “Then just let him out me.”

“No,” Ben hisses adamantly.

“I’ll move somewhere else, get the proper paperwork done this time. You can come with me,” she proposes, grasping his hand across the table.

“You belong here,” he states, squeezing her fingers. “You know that.”

She exhales wearily. “We’ll find a way,” she vows. “Even if I have to go in there and kick his ass myself.”

* * *

“Kylo.”

“ _What_?”

His response comes out as an irritated snap.

Snoke shoots him an ominous glare of warning as he drifts by, but otherwise elects to ignore the surly attitude. “I want you at this meeting.”

Ben hardly removes his stare from his laptop screen to give him a cursory glance. “You didn’t send me an invite.”

“This is my invitation,” Snoke quips. “Come. Now.”

Ben releases a low, rumbling groan of displeasure, before lethargically heaving himself up from his desk and trudging after Snoke to one of the meeting rooms. Idly, he notices another older man entering the room with Snoke, whose face is familiar enough to recognise but not to assign to a name or memory.

Snoke glowers unhappily at Ben when he merely flounces into the room and collapses into a chair. “Kylo,” he barks.

Ben raises his eyebrows at him, slouching low in his chair and swinging himself back and forth.

“Could you please get the door?” Snoke requests, barely able to hold the tenuous band of his temper together in front of their guest.

With a long sigh and an eye roll, Ben pushes himself out of his seat - thrusting his chair back several feet in the process - and brashly slams the door shut.

Snoke narrows his eyes at him. “You’ll excuse my associate, Kylo Ren, here,” he murmurs to the other man. “He’s been in a bit of a temper lately. Personal troubles.”

“That’s alright,” the man says in good nature. “I understand how it is. Lor San Tekka.” He reaches across the table with an outstretched hand to Ben.

Ben scowls at him in confusion. “What? Is that a foreign greeting?”

“That’s his name,” Snoke snaps angrily.

“Oh,” Ben mutters, before accepting Lor’s handshake. “Pleased to meet you. Ben Solo.”

Lor furrows his eyebrows bemusedly. “I...thought Snoke, here, just introduced you as Kylo Ren.”

“That is his name,” Snoke insists with a deadly glare. “Kylo just likes to stir the pot. Again, please excuse him.”

Ben snorts, but does not retaliate, and then drops himself back down into a seat.

“Now, let’s get to business,” Snoke proposes, lowering himself into his own chair. “We both know why we’re here. Kylo, I simply need you here as a witness to this conversation; no need to ask why-”

“I wasn’t going to,” Ben deadpans.

Snoke stares at him with a clenched jaw. “Good,” he pushes on. “Now, Mr. San Tekka. I will give you five minutes to state your case, after which I will make my decision.”

Lor regards Snoke with inscrutable eyes. “Well, I won’t need that long,” he prefaces. “I would simply like to remind you that our business relationship has been quite fruitful during the course of its life, and should you wish for it to continue, so too must your funding of our orphanage.”

Ben glances up from his phone at that. _Snoke’s been finding an orphanage?_

“Fruitful,” Snoke echoes thoughtfully. “Yes. I would agree so. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about your little organisation.”

Lor’s mouth twitches in a humourless smile. “Our _orphanage_ is fundamentally non-profit. You’ve always known that.”

“Yes, well,” Snoke returns, “non-profit does not have to mean making a loss, which your orphanage has been doing for the past six months.”

“We are in the red, yes,” Lor admits. “But it is only short-term, as a result of the recent economic downturn. Not only has the value of our assets stagnated, but more and more children are likely to be abandoned in less financially viable climates. I reiterate, however, that this is short-term. I’m sure you are aware that market forecasts are looking upward.”

“Hmmm,” Snoke hums. “I find it hard to be so optimistic, Mr. San Tekka. What upside is there for me in the short-term, while you are seeking to bleed my expendable income dry?”

Lor maintains his diplomatic smile. “Well, since the elections are now well and truly underway, I see only positives from our continued business relationship.”

“What benefits?” Snoke inquires.

Ben chances another glance at their guest, who merely gazes back at Snoke with steely resolve.

“Why, the reputational benefits of funding an orphanage, of course. It conveys a sense of compassion, of social integrity, by extending a helping hand to the community,” he says.

Snoke begins to sneer. It’s an expression Ben recognises. He’s about to yank his final move out of his sleeve. “And?” he presses.

Lor San Tekka’s eyes flicker over to the young man in the room. “The...” He hesitates, his voice lowered to almost a whisper. “The... _informational_ _leverage_...that I have to offer you.”

Ben’s phone falls to his lap. His attention is solely fixed on the conversation now.

Snoke grins. “Thank you, Ren. You are dismissed.”

Ben looks over at Lor San Tekka, who only provides him with a sidelong glance.

That’s why Snoke wanted him here? So that he could corroborate Lor San Tekka’s corruption, should he ever turn the tables on Snoke when their relationship goes south?

As he exits the room and pulls the door shut behind him, he comes to a realisation. If Snoke is afraid that Lor San Tekka will blackmail him, that must mean he has something to hide.

He smiles.

The old man has made a huge mistake.

* * *

It’s about an hour later that the meeting room door swings open. Ben has been monitoring it from his desk the whole time.

Out traipses Snoke first - smirking, clearly pleased with himself - heading straight for his own office. Another few beats and Lor San Tekka follows suit, appearing much more downtrodden than he’d been when he first arrived.

Their eyes meet across the distance - a prolonged, meaningful gaze - and then he leaves.

Ben gets up and hurries after him. 

* * *

It’s a late night for Snoke.

The office is empty by the time he leaves it, his employees having packed and left long before the summer sun had set. He strolls through the lobby quietly, nodding politely to the night cleaners on their way to the elevators. Wednesday nights are quiet in this area, and he exits the building to a peaceful sidewalk, dimly illuminated by a lone street lamp on either side of the road.

But he is hindered in his tracks by a tall, dark figure, who suddenly leaps out at him from the shadows.

“I know about the trading,” Ben declares, stepping out into the light.

Snoke does not react to the confrontation - not even a flinch. It’s as if he’d fully expected him to be there, spontaneously ambushing him in the night.

“The insider trading?” Ben explains. “Yeah. I know about it. I know you’ve been doing it with three of the largest energy retailers in Canto Bight.”

Snoke only blinks back at him wordlessly.

“Hey, Snoke? Here’s a tip: next time you decide to screw someone over, make sure you’re not doing it in front of someone else who considers you a common enemy and can use it against you.” A cocky sneer enlightens Ben’s features. “Now... Let me resign from First Order without outing Rey, and I won’t report you to the regulators and ruin your chances of ever making it into office.” He finishes his tirade with a self-satisfied smirk, and folds his arms over his chest.

The corners of his mouth slowly droop when all Snoke does his shake his head.

He uncrosses his arms. “What?”

“You fool,” Snoke tuts with a malicious snarl. “You poor, damned fool.”

“ _What_?” Ben demands again.

“You think that narrative is true?” Snoke scoffs. “That I would, for some unfathomable reason, reveal to San Tekka, some crook with an orphanage, that I participate in insider trading?”

Ben opens and closes his mouth in an incredulous sputter. “I-I...”

“I tested you,” Snoke reveals, and Ben’s heart plummets to the very pit of his stomach. “And now I know. You are both not to be trusted.”

“You’re lying.”

“I am not. Do you think I would be so stupid as to insist on working with a petulant _child_ who is constantly looking to take me down at every possible opportunity? I know of your resentment toward me. I only wanted to give you one last chance - a final test of loyalty - for all that we have been through together. But you failed. And now, I will have no qualms about firing you and sending that little _street_ _rat_ back to the junkyard where she belongs.”

Ben has lost all colour in his face. Distraught, helpless, and at a complete loss on what to do, he hastily whirls away from the monster before him and marches across the street.

 _I fucked up_ , he agonises. _I fucked up, I fucked up, I fucked up._

“Be prepared!” Snoke roars, stomping after him. “For your career to fall to ruins! For your little _girlfriend_ to be exiled! For your entire life to be destroyed by your own hand-!”

“Shut _up_!” Ben shouts back, abruptly spinning back around. “Shut up! I swear to God, stay away from me or I will beat the living shit out of you!”

The threat halts Snoke in his steps.

“You are crazy!” Ben rants. “You are just a sick, twisted, insane, psychopathic-!”

He doesn’t get to finish his insult.

A night bus, having taken the corner too quickly on a road dampened by light afternoon rain, rounds the block with a raucous skid and slams into the man in the middle of the street.

Ben drops his jaw and hunches his shoulders, utterly paralysed in pure, unadulterated shock. “No. Fucking. Way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did anyone order a cop-out ending? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> (I tried to write a serious one. I really did.)
> 
> Epilogue to come soon!


	8. Epilogue

Rey basks in the gentle warmth of the springtime sun as she crosses the road to Luke’s house, locking her car behind her with a contorted twist of her arm. Nostalgia hits her swiftly and suddenly, tears already stinging at her eyes at the familiar sight of those rickety porch steps, that ancient oak tree, and the faded red of that front door. Though it’s only been a couple of years since she last lived here herself, it hasn’t truly felt like home for much longer than that.

But as she traverses the front yard, she can already smell the familiar scent of Luke’s blueberry pie, wafting out through the cracked-open window, and hear the bustling commotion of Luke’s and Han’s banter in the kitchen, as well as Leia’s reactive admonishments.

There is just one missing piece of this perfect puzzle, but Rey has already noted the shiny, black Lexus parked in the driveway - the reason why she had to park across the street, after all.

She lets herself in with the same rusty, old key that she’s treasured since she was ten. An affectionate smile spreads across her face at the sound of laughter - actual laughter - roaring out from the kitchen.

It’s been so long since that sound has echoed against every wall of this house.

“Look who’s here!” Luke greets her joyfully when he spots her peeking her head in through the kitchen door. Residual chuckles are still escaping his body as he envelops her in a warm embrace.

“Hey there, old man,” she returns lovingly, swinging him back and forth.

“Thank God you’re here, Rey,” Leia drawls wryly as she steals her from Luke’s arms with a hug of her own. “I need someone to help me make these two behave.”

“Well, then, you clearly don’t know Rey as well as I do,” Han remarks, fondly patting Rey on the back. “She’s only gonna add to the trouble.”

“You’re right about that,” Rey snorts. She pulls back and timidly tucks her hair behind her ears. “U-Um,” she stammers, “where’s Ben?”

The other three all exchange knowing glances, before Luke indicatively jerks his head towards the stairs.

“In his old room,” he responds with a faint eye-roll. “Go on.”

Rey eagerly skips away like a child who’s been allowed twenty minutes on the playground. But when she reaches the stairs, she hesitates, apprehensive but unsure why. Slowly, she brings one foot up in front of the other, silently sneaking her way upstairs. As she nears his room, she can hear the TV on inside - the all-too-familiar sounds of first-person shooter gameplay dully drifting out through the barely-ajar door.

She exerts enormous effort into not bursting into tears from the sheer nostalgia of it all. Being back in this house, with Luke, Han, and Leia all in the kitchen downstairs, and standing outside Ben’s room, with him actually _inside_ , playing video games...

It’s almost too much.

She gently nudges open the door and peeks around it, nearly afraid that she’d imagined everything that’s happened within the past year and that she would only find an empty room.

Instead, lo and behold, she finds him - scruffily dressed in a hoodie and sweatpants, hair its usual wild, untamed disarray atop his head, and slumped low into a beanbag that is much too small for his massive frame. His eyes are in a half-squint as he attentively fixates on his game, his thumbs flying deftly over the controller gripped tightly in his hands.

Rey wonders if she is truly back to being twelve again.

His eyes dart up from the TV screen when she slinks in, and his features instantly brighten with relish. “Hey, hot stuff.”

Definitely not twelve anymore.

She releases an uninhibited squeal of glee and charges at him, lunging onto his lap.

He cries out an, “Argh!” of surprise and laughs as the air gets knocked out of him, narrowly catching her before her head hits a nearby bedpost.

She cups each side of his face in her hands and kisses him hard, not in the least shy about sliding her tongue past his lips.

“Stop! Stop, I need to breathe,” he eventually pants, angling his face away for reprieve. “You weirdo.”

“I’m just so happy,” she admits, beaming down at him.

He smiles, pushing her hair back from her face. “Yeah, me too.”

She pinches him by the nose and wriggles madly against his lap, tucking her face into his hair and curling her arms around his neck.

For once, things seem like they’re going to be okay.

She realises then, as she pulls back and loses herself in those deep, dark eyes, that as long as she and Ben are together, that will always be the case.

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler alert: this fic is gonna have a lot of Clueless and It’s Always Sunny references (in case you couldn’t already tell).


End file.
